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JTRR May Day Mud Run 1989 Event Page

Event Name	May Day Mud Run
Location	Tlingit-Haida Community Center, Hospital Drive, Juneau
Weather	⛅49°F, mostly clear, wind 4 mph gusting 9 at the start, from Open-Meteo’s historical archive
Description	Distance: approximately 7.9 miles, with a four-mile mud-only run starting at the same time Location: start at the Tlingit-Haida Community Center, Hospital Drive, in the Salmon Creek area; finish at Fish Creek Course: follow Glacier Highway, cross Egan Drive at Sunny Point, and enter the Mendenhall Wetlands. There is no set route across the flats. The four-mile run starts at Sunny Point. Start Time: 2:00 PM, sign-up from 1:30 PM. Low tide is 2:30 PM at 1.9 feet. Registration Fee: 5 dollars, no pre-registration. Entrants under 18 need a release form signed by a parent or guardian. Contact: Dawn Rider, 789-2181 or 364-3410 Expect knee-deep and possibly waist-deep water. Clean dry clothes left at the start are delivered to the finish. Two rules: stay out of the yards in the Bayview Subdivision across the channel, and cross the finish line at Fish Creek. The second race in the Empire Cup Runners Series.
History	The 1989 May Day Mud Run, Saturday 29 April, from the Tlingit-Haida Community Center across the Mendenhall Wetlands to Fish Creek. About 45 people ran. "It is any way you want to go once you are past Sunny Point. That is part of the fun. You just need to know you are going to get very muddy," said the organiser, Dawn Rider. Her only rules were to keep out of the yards in the Bayview Subdivision and to cross the finish line at Fish Creek. Going into the race the Empire gave the unofficial course record as 45:09, set the year before by Andy Grossman and Kelly Miller, and the unofficial women's record as 51:55 by Kathy O'Connell. Both were reported as unofficial, and on an approximate 7.9-mile course over tidal flats with no set route that is the only honest way to hold them. 1988 had been a milestone in the seven-year-old event: Grossman found a new line through the Bayview Subdivision that replaced hundreds of yards of wetlands mud with pavement, and about two minutes came off the average winning time. Miller stuck to the established route and trailed him by well over a minute on entering the wetlands. Rick Thibodeau is the only finisher recorded here, in 40:47. That time does not come from a 1989 results list - none has ever been found - but from the following year's report, which described 1989 as the year "the art of cutting through Bayview Subdivision to North Douglas Highway was at its apex" and still had him eight and a half minutes clear of the 1990 winner over the same course. The race paid Empire Cup points in six divisions: seven to each division winner, six for second, five for third, and one point to every finisher. SOURCE: "May Day Mud Run: Juneau's jog through muck" by Richard F. Schmitz, Juneau Empire, Thursday 27 April 1989, page 9, which is also where the course map comes from.
Course map
Race Director	DefaultRaceDirector Unassigned
Date and Time	1989-04-29 14:00:00
Relay/Team Events?	no
	yes
SERR Event	yes
Registration Form	Registration Form