Haines mountain guide Harry Subertas last week won a 200-mile endurance run -  one of the country's longest - around Lake Tahoe, on the California-Nevada border.

Overcoming steep terrain, a snowstorm and sleep deprivation, Subertas ran to a first-place finish in just shy of two and a half days.

The race's silver medalist, Mike Groenewegen, crossed the finish line about six minutes after Subertas. The last-place finisher arrived two days later. Among 229 people who started the race, 139 completed it.

"I don't think I've got a chance to take everything in yet," Subertas, who works for Alaska Mountain Guides, told the CVN a few days after the race. "I haven't had much time to sit down and kind of think about it. I'm just shocked personally at how well I was able to do."

The race, called the Tahoe 200, was Subertas' second-ever 200-miler. He ran his first - and won - last September. In that race, which was in southern Colorado, Subertas finished in 63 hours and 55 minutes, claiming gold by 20 hours.

Subertas slept for only one hour during the Tahoe run. About 165 miles into it, at 4:30 a.m., he said he inadvertently came to a halt. "I didn't feel really tired. But suddenly everything kind of cleared in my mind. I don't remember anything until the next moment the sun was shining on my head. It was 5:30. I lost an hour somewhere. I didn't have any bruises. I was perfectly fine."

Race workers who were monitoring Subertas on a live tracker said he stopped moving for an hour. "I definitely slept," Subertas said. "My body I guess shut down for that hour, and I felt like a new person again."

Subertas led the race the entire time. At the 150-mile marker, he was told that the racer in second was 10 miles behind. "From the next point on, I was walking more than running, I decided not to push myself at all. I stopped and chatted with people along the trail. It ended up being a fun outing - the last 50 miles."

But Groenewegen closed the gap. With one mile to go, Subertas stopped for a selfie and saw Groenewegen behind him on the trail. "I dropped my phone in the pack, and I started sprinting down," he said.

Race director Garrett Froelich said he had never heard of Subertas before the event but "everybody was just completely blown away with him."

The race starts with a 2,000-foot climb up a ski resort mountain. Subertas "took off like a bolt," Froelich said, "We were like, 'Who is this guy trying to run up a ski hill?'"

This year's route, which was modified due to wildfire damage, included 35,000 feet in elevation gain, and the same amount in loss, as it took runners from Lake Tahoe at 6,000 feet above sea level into the Sierra Nevada mountains at 9,000 feet and back down, several times, through forests and along ridgelines.

The Tahoe 200 is about 25 times longer, with slightly less elevation change, than running up and down the main Mount Ripinsky trail. It's about 40 times an out-and-back on the main Mount Riley trail, with slightly more elevation change.

Not only did Subertas complete the race in two days but he did it without a support crew or pacer. Froelich estimated that three-quarters of participants run with some kind of support. He said it's "very rare" for the top finishers not to have a crew or pacer.

Subertas also did something rare at the end of the run, Froelich said. He stuck around to assist fellow racers.

"I slept one night, and the rest of the time I spent volunteering at the aid station. I spent another 24 hours not sleeping, helping other runners," Subertas said.

The Tahoe 200 was first held in 2014. At the time, it was the country's only 200-mile one-way mountain run, according to Froelich. Now there are several more around the U.S. and world.

The route normally circumnavigates Lake Tahoe but was altered this year due to burns from a wildfire last year. Participants ran 100 miles on hiking trails from one ski resort, Homewood, to another, Heavenly, and back.

Subertas said he didn't follow a formal training regimen before the race but built his endurance skiing in Juneau, where he attended the University of Alaska Southeast last winter. The Ripinsky Piedad Trail and Flower Mountain are two of his favorite places to run in the Chilkat Valley.

Subertas completed his first long-distance race, a 100-miler, in 2017. He said he normally tries to do about one ultra-marathon a year but has two more scheduled this summer, including one in Scotland.

"I'm excited to see what else I could do," Subertas said. "This is just confirmation that maybe I'm going on the right track, testing my body, pushing, reaching the limits."

*The headline of this article was updated for accuracy. The June 30 print headline states Subertas ran "almost 64 hours" in the race. In fact, Subertas completed this summer's Tahoe 200 in 56 hours, 43 minutes. He won a different race, last year, in almost 64 hours.