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JTRR Mount Roberts Trail Challenge Run 1989 Event Page

Event Name Mount Roberts Trail Challenge Run
Location 134 N. Franklin St
Weather 62°F, overcast, wind 2 mph gusting 7 at the start, from Open-Meteo’s historical archive
Description Distance: the Mount Roberts trail from downtown Juneau to the cross, 2,000 feet of elevation gain
Location: start downtown, finish at the cross on Mount Roberts
Start Time: 10:00 AM
Course: the trail, and whichever of its shortcuts a runner is willing to gamble on. "Some of the shortcuts are faster, others cost you time. You have to pick them carefully," said the winner, Steve Schmitz.
History The 1989 Mount Roberts Trail Challenge Run, Saturday 29 July, 2,000 feet up from downtown Juneau to the cross. Forty-seven finishers, which the Empire called a large turnout.

Steve Schmitz won in 26:38, a men's course record. Kelly Miller had held it at 28:44 from the year before and took 41 seconds off his own mark finishing second in 28:03; Glenn Frick was third in 29:27.

Shelly James was the first woman in 33:47, 12th overall - the closest anyone had come to Nancy Pease's 31:35, set in the race's first year, 1986. James had hiked to the top as a race volunteer the year before and had never raced it. "It felt great. It's always been a hard training run, but seeing it be a big running event made it actually seem easy," she said. "I didn't take any shortcuts - I didn't want to mess up."

Elmer Ignell, 60, was the oldest runner to finish, in 46:11. Tyler Thomas, 11, was 30th in 41:13. Faster times all round were put down partly to better trail conditions; 1988 had been extremely muddy in places.

SOURCES: "James, Schmitz win 2,000-foot trail challenge" by Richard F. Schmitz, Juneau Empire, Monday 31 July 1989, page 10, with the overall results printed beside it, and a photograph by Scott Fischer of John McConnochie touching the cross.

NOTES ON THE LIST. The archive dated this race 5 August; the report ran on the Monday and describes it as having been run on the Saturday, which is 29 July, and the date has been corrected. Place 45 is printed twice, against Betsy Thomas and Genesis Ransom, and 46 does not appear; since the article gives 47 finishers and the list has 47 lines, the second 45 is 46. Places 39 and 41 carry the same time, 46:05, with Elmer Ignell's 46:11 between them, so one of the two is a typesetting duplication; both are stored as printed.
Race Director Betsy Fisher
Date and Time 1989-07-29 10:00:00
Relay/Team Events? no
no
SERR Event no
Registration Form Registration Form
information / results Distance Entrants Comments
3 3 miles 47
Thank you!1
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2026 0 entries
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2005 43 entries Photos!
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2003 29 entries
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1986 14 entries
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