NHS England to launch marathon-a-month walking challenge next year
NHS England's new walking challenge will ask people to log 30 minutes a day and turn it into a marathon a month. Finishers can get discounts, vouchers and digital badges.
NHS England is set to launch a “marathon a month” walking challenge early next year, with Sir Brendan Foster helping shape the campaign. Foster, the former Olympic medallist who founded the Great North Run, was asked by NHS England to help create a scheme designed to get people walking and to fit into England’s 10-year health plan.
The idea is simple: participants will be asked to walk for around 30 minutes a day. Over a month, NHS England says that works out at roughly 26 miles, close to marathon distance, giving the programme a clear target that can be repeated day after day.
The challenge is being designed to track activity digitally, with walks logged online or through a phone or smartwatch. People who complete the challenge will be eligible for rewards including discounts, vouchers and digital badges, making completion itself the threshold for the incentives.
NHS England is aiming to sign up more than 100,000 people. With Foster attached to the project and the rewards tied to logged activity, the scheme places a national public-health bet on a familiar formula: a daily walking target, a digital record and a prize for sticking with it.
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