Sunderland City Runs

On Sunday 11th May '25 I had the pleasure of returning to The Fire Station in Sunderland to caffeinate the runners and supporters of the Sunderland City Runs.

Ready to go before 8am!

There are two races on offer, a 10k and a half marathon as well as the Sunderland big 3k run which is open to those aged 5 and over. The weather was beautiful, perhaps a little too beautiful for some as Sunderland basked in some glorious May sunshine.

This is a hugely popular event in the North East's running calendar and this year was no exception.

Trade was busy from the minute I opened the hatch and served the first, grateful parent of a 3k runner at 7.50am. This was to continue until lunchtime when the runners naturally and deservedly, turn to other forms of liquid refreshment to celebrate their running successes.

Planning for an event like this can be tricky, will I have baked goods that hit the spot, do I have enough water for the van and to sell and should it be in bottles or cans and any mobile coffee vendor's main stock worry, will I have enough milk!

I was fortunate to be asked to support the Fire Station at this event last year so I had past data to help me plan from but even with some prior knowledge there is still an element of guess work that goes into planning stock levels for an event like this. I'm pleased to say I got it fairly spot on, I arrived home with 2 litres of milk, not much in the way of cold drinks, a very light barrel of coffee beans. The brownies were less popular than I'd hoped for but fortunately I've been able to freeze those for another day.

I had a great day serving some very appreciative customers and it was nice to see some returning from last year too. Not too much time to chat to individuals sadly, which is part of the joy of doing what I do normally but on a day like this it's sell, sell, sell.

I'm already lookikng forward to returning in 2026!