{"id":362802,"date":"2026-10-02T12:56:28","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T12:56:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/362802\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T12:56:28","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T12:56:28","slug":"runners-of-nyc-felipe-toribio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/362802\/","title":{"rendered":"Runners of NYC: Felipe Toribio"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Felipe at the 2024 Breakneck Marathon in Beacon, NY<\/p>\n

Every year growing up, Felipe Toribio remembers his dad traveling from their native Dominican Republic for the New York City Marathon. Felipe never traveled with him for the race, but would always try to spot his dad running across the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge on TV.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously we didn\u2019t [see him], but it was kind of a cool tradition that my sister and I had,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n

At the time Felipe never really had the goal of running the race himself, and didn\u2019t start running consistently until his mid-20s\u2014over a decade after he and his family moved to the U.S. From there he got involved with BridgeRunners and later Old Man Run Club, becoming a captain of the latter while signing up for races and marathons across the globe.<\/p>\n

However it\u2019s been on the trails where Felipe\u2019s found his true calling, both due to the sheer number of hours you spend outdoors for ultra training to \u2018how engaged you are physically and mentally to the terrain.\u2019 He says the main impact he wants to have on the New York City running community is to get others out on the trails more as well, part of the reason he now helps organize his own annual race\u2014a 50-miler from Bear Mountain to Central Park<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We spoke with Felipe to discuss how he found BridgeRunners and Old Man Run Club, the origins of his BearBones ultra trail race, his experience running UTMB Mont-Blanc this past August and more.<\/p>\n

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n

Can you give a quick intro of where you\u2019re from, what brought you to New York City and your initial origins of how you got into running?<\/p>\n

Yeah, so originally from the Dominican Republic, moved to the U.S. at age 11 or so. We moved around a little bit throughout the U.S. We first went to Miami, then we came up to the Northeast, between New York and Jersey. I went to high school in three different states: Florida, New York and Jersey\u2026. Went to college at Brooklyn College, and then a few years later moved into Brooklyn and have been here since.<\/p>\n

As far as running is concerned, my dad was a runner. He ran the New York City Marathon all throughout the \u201990s\u2014this is when we were living in the DR\u2014\u201991, \u201992, \u201993. We never traveled, it was just my dad that was traveling\u2026. But it was like, he\u2019s going to New York to do the marathon, and that was the coolest thing. We would watch the coverage on the TV, and we would try to spot him over the bridge. Obviously we didn\u2019t, but it was kind of a cool tradition that my sister and I had. And then he would come back with the medals and the plaques and all of that, and that was really cool.<\/p>\n

So obviously he would train at home, and sometimes I would go with him to the training runs. He would train a lot at a college campus that we had nearby, he also had a little crew with him, like a run club, that would travel together to New York and do the marathon. And they would also put races together over in the DR\u2014very similar, weirdly enough, to unsanctioned-style races, like half marathons and stuff. This was the early \u201990s, I don\u2019t know if they\u2019re still happening actually.<\/p>\n

I was never really a runner. I played baseball, because that\u2019s just what Dominicans do. And I started running again maybe in my mid-20s. I had a friend who was running, and he had one of the running apps, and that was a little motivation for me, \u2018Okay, I\u2019ll run with you.\u2019 And I have the history of my dad. And then it just rolled from there. Went little by little\u2014my first 5k I think was the Roosevelt Island 5k, I remember we were trying to break 30 minutes, and got in by like 10 seconds. And then, little by little, kind of grew from there.<\/p>\n

When your dad was doing the marathon back in the \u201990s, was it your goal to always do that too? When did that become a goal?<\/p>\n

It was something that was in the back of my head, \u2018Eventually I\u2019ll maybe try to run the marathon.\u2019 It was never really a goal. I never really enjoyed running as much as I do now.<\/p>\n

He would always try to encourage me to run, he was very proud of those days. And he was still running into his 50s and 60s\u2014not marathons, but casually he would go to the park and do three, four miles. But it was never really a goal of mine until I started running with my friend, and then eventually went into some of the clubs and started realizing what the potential in running can be, in terms of a social life, and in terms of personal growth and all that stuff.<\/p>\n

Can you talk through the early clubs or crews you were involved with?<\/p>\n

So BridgeRunners, this was maybe 10 years ago, they came across my feed\u2026. I saw their Instagram, and to be 100 percent, it was mostly about\u2014I was seeing the pictures, and there were people that kind of looked like me. There were other Dominicans, a lot of other people of color\u2026. I decided to go to BridgeRunners one day just because of that. It was as simple as that.<\/p>\n

My first run I think was Global Running Day. And if you know BridgeRunners\u2026. You never know what the mileage is going to be. You don\u2019t know the route. You kind of just go with open plans. You might get home at one in the morning. So my first run, we ran out of the Lower East Side, ran down to the ferry, took the ferry to Brooklyn, ran by the Belt Parkway, and we finished at Spumoni Gardens, pizza in Bay Ridge. This was my introduction into BridgeRunners, and I loved it. I loved how random it was, and how everybody waited for each other every few miles. There were a lot of stops, we took pictures. It was something to look forward to every week. I started meeting the people there, started getting closer to people like Mike Saes, and learning so much from him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved how random it was\u2026. It was something to look forward to every week\u201d<\/p>\n

So BridgeRunners was kind of a staple back in the day. A lot of people who started running in New York City, in the crew culture of New York City, started with Bridge, and they spread out to other clubs and started their own thing. It feels like everything started with Bridge, at least that wave of run culture, because there are definitely different waves.<\/p>\n

How did that eventually get you into races and marathons, and what were those initial goals?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of those things where the people that you\u2019re around define what your goals are. So hanging out with a lot of BridgeRunners, people that were traveling all over the world, doing Majors or doing ultras, those types of things\u2014I wanted to do those things, right?…. I felt like that was my people, this is who I want to hang out with.<\/p>\n

So my first marathon was I think 2017, I did the Philly Marathon, there were a few other BridgeRunners doing it. And then after that, in 2018 we went to The Speed Project, and I was the driver for BridgeRunners. And that was another window that opened into my running journey, the relay ultra scene. Just meeting other people at The Speed Project, other people from other crews all over the world, this connection with the overall running community around the globe. And finding races and looking for races was kind of through that connection. In 2019 we went to Berlin, and we met up with the Berlin Braves over there\u2026.<\/p>\n

And then with that came the goals. After we said, \u2018Okay, we\u2019re going here, we\u2019re going there,\u2019 it\u2019s like, \u2018All right, what might my goal be? Do I want to go for some specific time?\u2019 Things like that.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re very involved with Old Man Run Club as well. How did you find and get involved with them?<\/p>\n

So Old Man Run Club came out of one of the Nike Moonshot years. After the marathon, people still wanted to do long runs and hang out, and that\u2019s how Old Man came to be. And a lot of the OMRC people were the same\u2014it was BridgeRunners people. It was people from Brooklyn Track. There were people from other clubs around the city that also wanted to do long runs.<\/p>\n

I met the founders in an ultra run, it was Mike Saes\u2019s birthday run\u2026. And they were like, \u2018Yeah, just come on Saturday. We do long runs.\u2019 This was early 2019, and I just started going every Saturday. And I didn\u2019t become a captain until a few years later.<\/p>\n

Again, it was the same people that I was seeing on Wednesday nights at Bridge, I would see them on Saturday. And that was the cool thing back then with the NYC run culture, where the different clubs kind of share the same people. There was the run on Saturday. Queens had Queens Rebels on Thursdays. Brooklyn Track had their thing. And WRU Crew has their thing on Monday. And we all kind of went to all those runs throughout the week.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Felipe has run the New York City Marathon three times, including last November | Photo by @quentinmui.photos<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve been very into ultras over the last several years, you said that started with The Speed Project. Can you talk through what first attracted you to ultras, those first initial races, and how it expanded from there?<\/p>\n

Yeah, so TSP introduced me to that sort of world, even though TSP is not an individual ultra, but it\u2019s a relay ultra. The first ultra that I signed up for officially was the Comrades Marathon. So Comrades is about a 90k in South Africa. A friend, Nacho from BridgeRunners, did it in 2018, and he showed us some pictures and videos. And there were some other friends as well, they were going to go back in 2019, and I said I want to go back with you, just because it looked awesome\u2026.<\/p>\n

During that training, I decided to sign up for some other trail ultra races, I did a few 50ks training up to the 55-miler. I did a trail race in Utah, the Zion 50k, and I did the North Face 50k in Bear Mountain, which used to be a very popular race here. Sadly it\u2019s no longer there, but it was kind of a big introduction to trail races for the New York City community.<\/p>\n

So doing those races during my training introduced me more into the ultra trail community, and how much I love just being out in the mountains for long periods of time. Comrades is a road ultra-marathon, so it had nothing to do with ultra trail. But it was during that training that made me fall in love with ultra trail running. I was going to Bear Mountain almost every weekend training, Cold Spring, doing the Palisades, all that stuff. <\/p>\n

And then once we went to Comrades and we did it, it was the most amazing race that I had ever been to, completely different from anything I had experienced before. And from then it was like, \u2018What other possibilities are out there? Can I go to Cali? Can I go to Arizona? Can I go to other ultras that I might like?\u2019 And that\u2019s kind of all I wanted to do.<\/p>\n

Anything else you want to touch on in terms of what really hooked you to those races compared to the traditional road racing scene?<\/p>\n

Yeah, so many things. One is I enjoy being outdoors and spending a lot of time outdoors. If you\u2019re doing an ultra-marathon and you need to train, that means that you need to spend a lot of time outdoors, and I love that. I just love putting my vest on and going out for six, seven hours, even if it\u2019s just a hike. There\u2019s something about escaping the city. We\u2019re here day in and day out, taking the train, going to work nine to five, coming back, and we feel the grittiness of the city and everything around us. We go to bars and we go to restaurants, and it\u2019s very busy all day, all week. And whenever I went out to the outdoors, to the mountains, to the trails, it was a huge mental disconnect for me, and I really enjoyed that. Being able to breathe what felt like different oxygen really drew me in.<\/p>\n

And then another aspect about the trails is not having to worry too much about what I think are unnecessary things in the road running scene. Things like the BQs, and having to do specific paces and track things, that\u2019s not really my vibe. And not to say that\u2019s not necessary\u2014if I wanted to do well in an ultra trail, those things are necessary, obviously. But I just didn\u2019t enjoy them as much.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to be concentrated in every movement of your body. You have to know where you\u2019re stepping, what the next three steps are\u2026. Whenever I finished a trail run, I felt that runner\u2019s high came so much easier\u201d<\/p>\n

And another thing that I love about just trail running in general is how engaged you are physically and mentally to the terrain during the run. You have to be concentrated in every movement of your body. You have to know where you\u2019re stepping, what the next three steps are. So just that mental engagement\u2014it reminds me of climbing, bouldering, where you\u2019re on the whole time. You can\u2019t let go, otherwise you\u2019ll fall. And whenever I finished a trail run, I felt that runner\u2019s high came so much easier. And it felt so good, just letting my brain get back into it after a longish trail run of being engaged the whole time. So I really, really enjoy that. It\u2019s a necessary kind of mental workout for me.<\/p>\n

You also help organize and put on some of your own unsanctioned ultra races, whether it\u2019s Bell to Bull<\/a> or Bear Mountain down to Central Park. Can you talk through the origins of that? What motivated you to want to organize races at a high level, and those specific ones in particular?<\/p>\n

So for me, it started from helping out other races, just volunteering and stuff. First, it was with Bell to Bull. Bell to Bull is a race that Nacho started, and I\u2019m kind of helping him out with that. It\u2019s a race that goes from Philly to New York, from the Liberty Bell to the Charging Bull. Two runners share one bike. So we put that together, obviously unsanctioned, and we try to keep costs very low and registrations very low, and it was just all about spending a good day out, and having people just suffer, and that was kind of cool\u2026.<\/p>\n

BareBones came about just from those trails\u2014I run those trails all the time. And I love routing things. I have like a million routes on my Strava. I\u2019m constantly routing and checking out what\u2019s the mileage, what\u2019s the distance from here to there, how long it would take, what\u2019s the elevation, what\u2019s the terrain. So because I\u2019m running in Bear Mountain all the time, and I\u2019m running in the Palisades all the time, it was kind of an obvious thing. Why don\u2019t we just run it? Why don\u2019t we just run from Bear Mountain to the city, right?<\/p>\n

And Nacho helped me out with that. So it was both of us, we were like, \u2018All right, let\u2019s make this as bare bones as possible.\u2019 Easy name, right? And then we routed a 50-mile course, and it was like 20 bucks or something like that, as simple as possible, pizza and beers after, and then see who shows up. And the first year, like 25 people showed up, and it was like, \u2018Oh shit, this is awesome. How cool is that?\u2019 And this year, this was our second year, the same amount of people. And the first year I ran it while also race directing, which was really cool and hard. But we had a blast, and we hope to keep doing that every year.<\/p>\n

People I\u2019m sure have ideas for races in the back of their heads all the time. What motivated you to take this idea and turn it into an actual race?<\/p>\n

The main goal for me was to show people how easy it is to get from New York City to the trails upstate. Because there are a lot of people in New York City that want to run trails, but it\u2019s just inaccessible to them. Or maybe they just don\u2019t know anyone that can show them around, or they don\u2019t understand how close the trailhead is to the train station. So the first year of BareBones was kind of like, \u2018Okay, let\u2019s show people how easy it is to get there\u2019….<\/p>\n

And because we had the experience from Bell to Bull and from some other races that BridgeRunners had put together that I had also volunteered at, I had some idea of what\u2019s happening. I knew what I wanted to do and what I didn\u2019t want to do. I didn\u2019t want to have any T-shirts, or any brand collabs, or anything like that, because that just added more work for us. Nacho and I were like, \u2018Less is more, right? Let\u2019s just keep it simple.\u2019 It\u2019s one of these Fat Ass events\u2014I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve heard of that, but it\u2019s just a group of friends running from point to point. <\/p>\n

So we just picked a date, we made the Instagram post\u2014we used the same account from Bell to Bull, switched it up to BareBones\u2014and just put it out into the community, and people showed up. So it didn\u2019t feel that hard to put together. It was something that I felt like I just had to do, and we love doing it.<\/p>\n

You just did UTMB [Mont-Blanc] this year, I\u2019m sure that was a long time coming. What was that experience like?<\/p>\n

Oh my god, yeah, very long time coming. So since I got into trail ultra running back in 2019, I kind of discovered UTMB then. And it was one of those races where like, \u2018Eventually maybe I\u2019ll do it. That thing is so long, it\u2019s far from here.\u2019 And then also, the process to get into UTMB itself is not easy. You have to do other qualifying races and collect stones and put yourself in the lottery and do some of their races as well. So I\u2019ve been doing a few other 100s, just to collect what they call stones, which are essentially lottery tickets. And I never thought that I was going to get in. And I got lucky\u2014or unlucky\u2026.<\/p>\n

UTMB itself was an amazing experience. It\u2019s once in a lifetime. It was my first time in Chamonix and in France, and the mountains were just insane. Nothing compares to that here in New York, obviously. I had my mom and sister also go out. My wife was there. And my dad passed away last year in September, so it was also our big trip together since then, so it meant a lot to the family as well. It was a beautiful experience.<\/p>\n

It was definitely the hardest race I\u2019ve ever done. It took me 39 hours. I would have hoped to finish a little faster than that, but got it done. Another cool thing was that I was the only Dominican this year. I think fewer than 10 Dominicans have done it ever. Not a lot of Dominicans are out there doing ultra trail runs.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes I still wake up in the middle of the night thinking I\u2019m there, thinking I\u2019m still doing some of those climbs. It was horrible, but beautiful at the same time\u201d<\/p>\n

So yeah, there\u2019s just so much to say about UTMB. It was an amazing experience. It was hard. I was hallucinating. Sometimes I still wake up in the middle of the night thinking I\u2019m there, thinking I\u2019m still doing some of those climbs. It was horrible, but beautiful at the same time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Felipe at UTMB Mont-Blanc this past August<\/p>\n

Any specific topics that I didn\u2019t ask about that you\u2019d like to touch on, or any closing thoughts?<\/p>\n

I did kind of mention it before, but I do have this big goal in my impact in the New York City running community\u2014not that it\u2019s a big impact, but it\u2019s some\u2014and that is just to get people out into the trails. And that\u2019s why every year I\u2019m always either doing races like BareBones, or I\u2019m taking people on trail runs. Earlier this year we did Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim, we did the Grand Canyon, and that was with some of the OMRC peeps. And I\u2019m always organizing these types of trail adventures.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want people to get out of the city and enjoy nature and enjoy the outdoors. The trails are so accessible to us, even though they seem to be so far from where we are\u201d<\/p>\n

And the only reason I do it is\u2014obviously I love doing it myself, on a selfish level. But also, I want people to get out of the city and enjoy nature and enjoy the outdoors. The trails are so accessible to us, even though they seem to be so far from where we are. And it just takes a little bit of work. But that\u2019s kind of what my personal journey is taking me toward. I\u2019m coaching now, for example, and it\u2019s only for trail ultra running, just because of that. <\/p>\n