06/15/2026
Humans are amazing.
Yesterday on the Tahoe Rim Trail, we stopped to chat with three guys along the trail. It turned out they were waiting for their friend, Aaron Kubala, so we decided to hang out and wait with them.
Aaron was about a mile from the finish of the Tahoe 200, a 200-mile race that circles the Tahoe Basin.
By that point, he had covered 199 miles, climbed 35,117 vertical feet, descended another 35,117 feet, and spent nearly 48 hours moving through mountain terrain that averages 8,000 feet in elevation.
We later learned he had slept a total of nine minutes during the race and had overcome a significant health scare that forced him to stop, rest, and hydrate while watching other runners pass him.
When he came into view, there was no big crowd and no fanfare. Just three friends and a handful of strangers standing on the side of a trail, watching someone do something that is difficult to fully comprehend.
Aaron went on to finish in a record time of 48 hours, 9 minutes. A full hour better than the previous record time.
A few miles later, we crossed paths with another runner, Mika Thewes, who would go on to finish second overall and first among the women. Another awe-inspiring human
Talk about a few minutes of perspective...
Many of us hike a section—or several sections—of the Tahoe Rim Trail. Some people spend nearly two weeks backpacking the entire 165-mile route. Aaron, along with the runners behind him, had a 100 hour cutoff to run not only the Tahoe Rim Trail, but additional miles beyond it. 199 out of 282 runners that started the race finished before the cutoff.
You'd think running a race like that would be enough. Aaron isn't done.
The Tahoe 200 was just the first leg of the Triple Crown of 200s. Later this summer he'll be running the Bigfoot 200 in Washington and the Moab 240.
I'll be paying attention (and trying to complain too much on the long hikes Shannon and I have planned this summer).
