cyrus imapd fails to start from runscript. /etc/init.d/cyrus reports

mail ~ # openrc
 * Caching service dependencies ...                                                                                                                                     [ ok ]
 * checkpath: mkdirat: No such file or directory
 * Failed to create directory at /run/cyrus/
 * ERROR: cyrus failed to start

commenting out:

#checkdirs || return 1

sidesteps the issue.

/run exists and is writable. cyrus is running

i did not try to create those dir's manually. this was a running mail server that needed to be restarted after a power outage that never came back up. this was not a result of a new install or any package upgrades