NextGenDingmad Bringing Youth and Energy to Running in St Ingbert

There is a word that does not appear in any standard German dictionary, and yet it means everything to a small city in Saarland. "Dingmad" is St. Ingbert slang, the kind of word that locals toss around without thinking, an expression of belonging that outsiders simply do not have. When Nico and Luca, both 22 years old at the time, were searching for a name for their new running crew in early 2022, they landed on something that fused two ideas into one: the next generation of runners, and the unmistakable identity of the place they call home. NextGenDingmad was born in January 2022, and the name alone tells you almost everything you need to know. The founding story is straightforward but quietly compelling. Nico and Luca looked at the running landscape in St. Ingbert and found a gap. There were clubs for older runners, there were solo joggers, but there was no real community pulling young people toward the sport in an accessible, energising way. So they built one themselves. No grand infrastructure, no sponsorship deals, just two young men with a clear idea and the resolve to follow through. What they created has since grown to around 60 members, a number that reflects genuine word-of-mouth growth rather than aggressive recruitment.

A Crew That Puts Its Money Where Its Values Are

One of the more concrete expressions of NextGenDingmad's philosophy is financial. Race entry fees and the cost of crew clothing are covered collectively, which means nobody is priced out of participation. In a sporting world where kit and competition costs can quietly become barriers, this is a deliberate and meaningful choice. The crew's average member age hovers around 24, a statistic that speaks to how successfully Nico and Luca have reached the audience they were always aiming for. Young runners in St. Ingbert now have a place to show up, train hard, and feel like they belong, without worrying about what it costs them. The crew's captains, Muriel and Maximillian, help carry the day-to-day rhythm of the group. A crew of 60 people requires more than founding energy to function well, and the presence of dedicated captains ensures that newer members have points of contact, guidance, and consistency. The founding vision and the operational reality are kept aligned by people who are genuinely invested in both.

Three Sessions, Three Different Reasons to Run

The weekly schedule at NextGenDingmad is built around variety, and each session has its own character. Wednesday evenings at 7:00 pm bring the crew to the track, where the work is precise and purposeful. Speed and structure define these sessions. The track strips running back to its most elemental form: distance, time, effort. It is a training environment that rewards consistency and gives runners a measurable sense of progression over weeks and months. Saturday mornings shift the register entirely. At 11:00 am the crew gathers for a Park Run, a session defined less by intensity than by atmosphere. The city park setting provides green surroundings and a pace that encourages conversation as much as exertion. It is the session that perhaps best captures the social core of NextGenDingmad, an hour or so of running that doubles as community time. Then on Sundays, also at 11:00 am, the Long Run takes over. Distance and endurance are the focus, and the crew spreads across a range of pace groups spanning from 3:00 to 7:00 minutes per kilometre, meaning that a first-year runner and a seasoned competitor can both find their place in the same session.

Running Through Saarland's Understated Landscape

St. Ingbert sits in the Saarland region of southwestern Germany, a part of the country that rarely makes international headlines but offers a quietly rewarding environment for runners. The surrounding landscape includes the St. Ingbert Forest, where trails wind through dense woodland and the noise of daily life falls away almost immediately after you leave the trailhead. Further out, the Bliestal-Höhenweg traces the contours of the Blies Valley, a route that rewards effort with long views and changing terrain. Closer to the city centre, the Schlossberg offers a genuine ascent for those who want elevation in their Sunday legs. These are not purpose-built running attractions. They are the natural and historical features of a region that happens to be well-suited to the sport, and NextGenDingmad has made them its own. Running these routes regularly, as a crew, transforms familiar ground into shared territory. A trail that one person once jogged alone becomes a place where friendships were formed, where someone ran their first long distance, where the group pushed through a cold November morning together.

The City That Shaped the Crew

Understanding NextGenDingmad means understanding something about St. Ingbert itself. This is a city of moderate size, not a metropolis with an established running culture and dozens of competing clubs. It is the kind of place where a new initiative can make a real and visible difference, where 60 dedicated runners represent a meaningful proportion of the community's sporting life. The crew's founders understood this instinctively. By naming themselves with a local slang term, they signalled from the start that this was not an import or an imitation. NextGenDingmad is specific to this place, shaped by its streets and its character. The city also hosts its own race calendar, including the St. Ingbert City Run, which runs through the older parts of the city and draws spectators out onto the streets. For crew members who train week in and week out on local routes, competing in a home-city race carries a particular satisfaction. The streets are familiar, the crowd may include people you know, and the effort feels connected to something larger than a personal time goal.

An Open Invitation to the Next Generation

NextGenDingmad makes no secret of its ambitions. Nico and Luca started this crew because they believed running could reach young people who had never considered it, and that belief has not faded as the crew has grown. The three-session weekly structure, the financial accessibility, the range of pace groups, and the inclusive atmosphere all point toward the same conclusion: this crew was designed to lower every possible barrier between a young person in St. Ingbert and the act of going for a run with others. For anyone in or passing through the region who wants to find out more, the crew maintains an active presence at nextgendingmad on Instagram and a full website at nextgendingmad.de. The invitation is a genuine one, shaped by people who remember exactly what it felt like to be a young runner with nowhere particular to go. NextGenDingmad exists because Nico and Luca decided that was not good enough, and roughly 60 people in St. Ingbert are better for it.