Walk This May opens signups
The Walk This May community challenge reopened signups for Worcestershire and Herefordshire residents, aiming to get people outside and more active this spring. (kidderminstershuttle.co.uk) Local walking efforts like this are useful motivation if you prefer community events to solo fitness goals — they pair accountability with gentle cardio. (kidderminstershuttle.co.uk)
A local fitness challenge in western England just reopened, and the pitch is unusually simple: don’t join a gym, just turn up and walk. The 2026 Walk This May Challenge is now open to residents across Worcestershire and Herefordshire for National Walking Month in May. (kidderminstershuttle.co.uk) The organizers are Active Herefordshire and Worcestershire, Herefordshire Council, and Worcestershire County Council. They say the walks are aimed at “all ages and abilities,” which is local-government language for routes that are meant to feel manageable, not punishing. (activehw.co.uk, herefordshire.gov.uk) This is not a step-count app contest where you disappear into your own phone for 31 days. The format is free guided walks run by local Wellbeing Walks groups in Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health Walks in Worcestershire. (herefordshire.gov.uk, herefordtimes.com) The routes are deliberately short and steady. Earlier official details for the campaign said walks ranged from 10 to 90 minutes, used easy ground, and were reachable on foot or by public transport. (worcestershire.gov.uk, herefordtimes.com) The challenge already has a built-in local symbol: 53 miles, the length of the border between Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Last year’s campaign asked walkers to help cover that distance collectively, turning an abstract health push into a map people in the two counties can picture. (herefordtimes.com) People overshot that benchmark by a lot. Official pages for the 2025 campaign say participants logged more than 4,700 miles, including one figure of 4,723.18 miles, which organizers said was roughly the same as walking the 53-mile border 89 times. (herefordshire.gov.uk, publicnow.com) That helps explain why the 2026 version is back. Local councils and activity groups do these campaigns because a fixed month, a nearby route, and a named group can get people moving more reliably than a vague promise to “exercise more” someday. (herefordshire.gov.uk, activehw.co.uk) There is also a local health backdrop here. Worcestershire County Council said in an earlier Walk This May campaign that 45 percent of adults in Worcestershire and 50 percent in Herefordshire walk regularly or fairly regularly, which means half or more of adults are still outside that habit. (worcestershire.gov.uk) So the news is small on purpose: no medals, no entry fee, no specialist gear, just scheduled walks in two neighboring counties during May 2026. If the 2025 turnout is a guide, the organizers are betting that making exercise social and local is enough to get thousands of miles out of people who might not have started alone. (kidderminstershuttle.co.uk, herefordshire.gov.uk)
