February 18, 2026
Provided Image/Sebastian Chiu
Sebastian Chiu, an amateur ultramarathon runner from Brooklyn, trekked from New York City to Philly over the weekend in just over 28 hours. Above, Chiu is shown in a selfie taken on Route 1 in New Jersey during the journey from New Brunswick to Trenton.
When Sebastian Chiu turned 33 years old last week, the Brooklyn-based tech worker decided to celebrate with an adventure that would test his limits as an ultramarathon runner.
Chiu woke up Saturday morning, crossed the Williamsburg Bridge and trekked to Wall Street's famed Charging Bull sculpture. Then he started his stopwatch on a so-called "Bull to Bell" run all the way to the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. The route is popular among East Coast distance runners, who usually make the trip in reverse.
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"I've always thought it would be fun to do some of these different adventure runs, so to speak, to be able to experience different parts of the area," said Chiu, who grew up outside Los Angeles.
His 126-mile journey from Manhattan to Philly took Chiu 28 hours and 5 minutes, including several stops for food and rest at Wawas and fast food joints. Chiu didn't sleep at all. He let the stopwatch keep running after he arrived outside the Liberty Bell Center just before 3:30 p.m. Sunday. The complete data from his run is posted on Strava, an app many athletes use as a GPS tracker, and the results he shared with other runners on Reddit include the cooldown time Chiu spent in Philly.
"This is stupid," one commenter replied. "I love it."
I ran from New York City to Philadelphia!
by u/dodgingdodger in ultrarunning
Chiu didn't have any big plans in Philly. He wandered around Center City, checked out City Hall and then hopped on a bus home from Chinatown. He said he would have stayed longer, but he knew wet weather was on the way Sunday night and didn't want to delay getting home. He was pleased with his Wawa experiences in New Jersey, where he got a chicken burrito and a mac and cheese bowl.
"It's a really great establishment," Chiu said.
Ultramarathon running — anything beyond the traditional 26.2-mile marathon distance — is a growing sport among endurance runners. The grueling mental and physical toll requires careful planning to map out the best strategies to stay on two feet. There are formal ultramarathon races, like the Western States 100 in California, and a range of informal routes that may span multiple days over several hundred miles.
"There's a degree to which, if you think too much about the safety aspect, you can psych yourself out of doing something," Chiu said. "But you have to think enough about it to really understand what you're getting yourself into."
Sebastian Chiu takes a selfie on Market Street, outside the Liberty Bell Center, with Independence Hall in the background on Feb. 15, 2026. Chiu had just completed his run from New York City to Philadelphia.
Chiu's run to Philly was entirely self-supported. Other ultramarathon runners sometimes have a car follow them with supplies for hydration, food and overall safety. Having backup lets them run a bit more freely. It also helps if there isn't snow all over the place.
"If you had a professional runner do something like this, they could probably bang it out in under 20 hours," Chiu said.
To brave the elements and traffic, Chiu wore six layers of reflective clothing and a vest with compartments for water. He set out on his wintry course with about 2,000 calories of food, supplementing the rest of his energy needs with fast food and Coca-Cola.
Since moving to Brooklyn several years ago, Chiu has made runs from Newark to Trenton and from New York City to New Haven, Connecticut. He's also done six 100-mile races as an amateur. He said ultramarathons have changed the way he thinks about geography, giving him a deeper appreciation for distances and a fondness for small towns like Levittown and Bensalem.
"When I do these runs, I have an opportunity to almost use my mind as a camera," he said. "I'll blink really hard, like I'm taking pictures with my eyes or my brain. And when it's done, I can visualize a time-lapse in my mind of that entire path at like, 100 times speed."
For the Bull to Bell run, Chiu's toughest stretch was the roughly 30-mile trek along Route 1 in New Jersey from New Brunswick to Trenton. Chiu ran to Trenton overnight to avoid traffic, but he had to leap into snowbanks on the shoulder of the road to dodge passing cars on several occasions.
Apart from general soreness, Chiu said he felt completely normal by Tuesday. He didn't have any major blisters or other injuries, and the time passed without much mental stress.
"You need to have the ability to run in autopilot," Chiu said.
Chiu is now training for a chance to run the Cocodona 250, an ultramarathon in Arizona that's twice as long as the run he just completed.
Even if most people would think running through snow for 28 hours sounds miserable, Chiu said he's found ultramarathons are beneficial to his mental health and social life.
"When I'm running, I feel like my mindset is generally more positive and it allows me to think through things in a productive way," he said. "The kinds of things I think about are like, 'Oh, man, I haven't talked to this person in a while. It would be really great to reach out to them.' It's fun to allow your mind to wander in a very natural way."
