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Movement 26.2 announced
NHS England is set to launch a “marathon a month” walking challenge early next year, asking participants to walk for around 30 minutes daily and cover roughly 26 miles over the month.
“Based on facts observed and verified directly by our journalists or by informed sources”
The scheme is designed to let people log their progress online or via a phone or smartwatch, and it aims to sign up more than 100,000 people with daily stats recorded digitally.
Sir Brendan Foster, the Olympic medallist and founder of the Great North Run, is helping develop the campaign and told the public: “I’m known for running, but the ambition here is far simpler. We just want people to walk. Simple,”.
NHS England links physical inactivity to one in six deaths, and defines a person as inactive if they do less than 30 minutes of moderate-intensity activity per week, while Sport England’s Active Lives survey found that in the year to November 2025 nearly a quarter of adults, around 12 million people, fell into that category.
Streaks, rewards, and debate
The campaign leans on “streak” culture, with Sir Brendan Foster banking on the habit-forming mechanic behind Snapchat and Duolingo to keep participants going.
Speaking to the BBC, Sir Brendan said, “We just want people to walk. Simple,” and the initiative is also framed as a way to make movement “simple, achievable and rewarding.”
But Sonia Pombo, head of research and impact at Action on Salt & Sugar, cautioned that “we cannot rely on individual behaviour change alone,” adding that the government must pair initiatives like this with stronger prevention measures.
The NHS will cover the initial set-up, while the wider plan is to draw in philanthropic backing from major corporates as the scheme rolls out, with GPs and other health staff encouraged to promote it to patients.
What’s at stake next
The NHS says the challenge is part of its 10-year health plan for England, and it is being developed with Sir Brendan Foster after NHS England asked him to build a campaign to get people walking.
“The NHS is to offer rewards to people who walk for half an hour a day, in the first scheme of its kind to pay Britons back for getting active”
The scheme’s target is tied to health outcomes, with Sir Brendan saying that if someone walks 30 minutes five times a week, they could gain up to four extra years of healthy life.
For critics, the stakes are not only participation but whether incentives can substitute for prevention, as Pombo argued that the government must “pair initiatives like this with stronger prevention measures.”
As the programme prepares to roll out, the organising team has yet to confirm precisely what is on offer, with vouchers described as one option under consideration and the presence of Sir Keith Mills, the founder of Air Miles and Nectar, pointing to loyalty-scheme architecture being brought to bear on the nation’s step count.
