Race Rundown: Hamminkeln Abendlauf, 4th September 2026
Including the break for Covid, Hamminkeln’s annual running festival goes back over fifty years and the 2026 event was my fourth. It is one of my favourite things I do as a Harrier.
Prior to Covid, it was known as the Citylauf and run on the Sunday of our August bank holiday weekend (2018 and 2019 for me). Since the pandemic it has moved to the Friday evening of late August/early September (2023 and 2026 for me) and this year drew in over 1,500 runners across the whole junior and senior races. Hamminkeln is comparable to Sedgefield in size so it really punches above its weight with the event. Sam Rudd joined me again, having also enjoyed it three years ago and so did a Coxhoe friend Danny Eason, who some of you know from his time as Fishburn Primary’s headteacher. Unfortunately Tony, another friend and former Harrier was due to come but had to pull out with illness. Joining us this year for the first time were Trina and Graham Price, who made it the culmination of their fortnight holiday.
So via the Hull-Rotterdam ferry and 130 miles through Holland into Germany, we arrived in our twin town on Friday lunchtime and a reception with the Mayor of Hamminkeln! I hoped I hadn’t overplayed the “finest runners from our club” message but needn’t have worried because the hour we spent in the council chambers was formal but very friendly. Mayor Robert hoped that this example of inter-town mutuality might start a new era of working together. In this age of identifying difference and otherness I share his aspiration. He asked that I pass his hopes onto Sedgefield’s mayor.
Also present in the town hall was this year’s Race Direktor Marc – who did a fantastic job again – as well as former RD Jörg. Jörg also kindly hosted the three of us in his home, representing the kind of generosity I’ve come to know from the Hamminkeln visits and its people. I’d only met Jörg once before, as RD for the event in 2023, but back in spring he immediately offered to put us up for the night and when I asked for him to please check that this was okay, his reply was “my wife looks forward to four sweaty men staying in our house”. Jessica was as good as her word (many words in fact, in great English, spoken in a Scottish accent from her time living in Glasgow) and after the race we all sat up well into the evening, eating pasta and drinking local beer. Their teenage kids, also great English speakers, didn’t seem too bemused. They were all so generous.
Yes there was some running too. After the junior races came the 5k (at 6pm), the 5k Nordic Walking (at 6.02pm, only in Germany I told them, would a race reliably begin at .02) and the 10k at 7pm. Graham was entered in the Nordic Walking so imagine our surprise when he came through with the 5k runners. If he tells you that his head start was an accident, he’s a big fat fibber; he was running through that start! He wasn’t running at the end but he had a right lather on because he walked a cracking time of 41 minutes.
Danny doesn’t class himself a runner (even though he frequently pounds the streets of Coxhoe) and this was his first ever race. He wore a gäst shirt in Harriers reverse colours. Sam has been struggling with a knee injury and fitness and after a good start on Friday night, unfortunately decided to call it a day after one lap and 5k. The 10k route is two rural laps of said 5k, all on good, flat roads; 2018’s race remains my PB. Like Sam, my knee injury has prevented any real training in the last year or so and the 10k distance has become a bit of a chore, meaning when we set off my aim was to sit behind the metronome that is Trina Price and if I had any energy left at the end, shamelessly try and outsprint her. I knew she was looking at just under the hour and that suited me fine.
And then at an early turn, where a car park exit was churning up some mud, I stupidly overtook her by accident. Bugger. So once ahead I had to stay ahead and then spent the next couple of kilometres wondering where she was. We all know it’s not the done thing to glance over one’s shoulder to see where a team mate is, psychology and all that, so I had to wait for a ninety degree turn to check surreptitiously. Trina was there, but a bit of a gap had developed.
I am now ‘racing’ and she almost certainly couldn’t have cared less.
I haven’t run a 10k distance in recent months where I didn’t feel it was a toil, but by the time I finished the first lap, I was feeling alright. It must have been the three hours sleep on the ferry the night before and the twenty wee stops on the subsequent car journey. It might have also been the great on-course support, including from folks who I haven’t seen for several years. But I began to enjoy the feeling of running at a pace and through the second half continued to maintain it. Now I know that sub 55 minutes is no great shakes but for me these days it is and I managed to run a negative split (and my fastest 5k all year) to dip under that by about twelve seconds. I was so chuffed. Trina came in just under the hour, of course, and Danny remarkably was less than a minute over that mark. They were both very pleased too.
Stories of sweaty athletic greatness were replayed at Jörg’s house over beer and pasta well into the night (he too had run better than forecast) and following a lazy patio breakfast, we met back up with Trina and Graham at Rotterdam later on Saturday. Over an evening meal on the ferry, we all agreed we’d be back next year and I really hope we will.
When the 2027 date comes out, I’ll share it with you all. It’s a super experience. That it was also my best run in a year seemed quite fitting.
Pete.
