The real plague isn't the Horde.

It's no longer moving.

RunRunFar asks for two things: 5 km of running a day, at whatever pace you like, and 10,000 steps. Everything else — the zombies, the town, the Sunday assault — is just an excuse to get you outside.

Join my town The numbers

What the numbers measure

These aren't opinions. They are the measurements of public health bodies, and they all point the same way.

31%
of adults worldwide don't move enough — 1.8 billion people. The share rose 5 points between 2010 and 2022, and the WHO expects 35% by 2030.
WHO, 2024
20 to 30%
higher risk of death for people who don't reach 150 minutes of moderate activity a week, compared with those who do.
WHO, 2024
1 in 5
In France, more than one adult in five spends over seven hours a day sitting. And 27% of men and 41% of women fall short of the guidelines.
Santé publique France, 2021 Health Barometer
$300 bn
in healthcare costs between 2020 and 2030 — about 27 billion a year — if inactivity stays at its current level.
WHO, 2024

What it leaves behind

Inactivity can't be seen. Its consequences can.

In 2024, 2.6 billion adults worldwide were overweight — 45%, against 25% in 1990. 940 million were living with obesity. Among 5-to-19-year-olds, obesity went from 2% in 1990 to 8% in 2024: it quadrupled in one generation. A high body mass index caused 3.7 million deaths in 2023, through cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancers.

But weight is not the problem to solve: it is one symptom among others. What can be treated is inactivity — and it can be treated even when the needle on the scales doesn't move. The studies below all measure the effect of moving, not of losing weight. We're not asking you to weigh any less. We're asking you to get outside.

Our two requests

5 km of running a day, at whatever pace you like

It's the “whatever you like” that matters. Among 55,137 adults followed for fifteen years, runners had a 30% lower risk of dying, 45% lower for cardiovascular causes, and lived three years longer on average. The benefit was already there for those who ran less than 51 minutes a week, and for those who ran slower than 9.7 km/h.

A meta-analysis of 232,149 participants goes further: 27% lower all-cause mortality, 30% for the heart, 23% for cancers — and no dose-response relationship. Running faster, longer or more often gave no extra protection. The authors sum it up in one sentence: running once a week is better than not running.

Let's be honest: no study says “5 km a day”. The benefit starts well below that. We ask for 5 km because a daily appointment holds better than a good resolution, not because it is a medical threshold. Three kilometres of brisk walking already counts.

10,000 steps a day

Across 15 cohorts and 47,471 adults, the quarter who walked the most had a 53% lower risk of dying than the quarter who walked the least (relative risk 0.47). In between, everything is gradual: simply moving from the most sedentary quarter to the next one already cut the risk by 40%.

Let's be honest here too: the 10,000 steps come from no study. It is the name of a 1960s Japanese pedometer, the manpo-kei — “the 10,000-step meter”. The figure stuck because it is round. What the data show is that the benefit levels off around 6,000 to 8,000 steps after 60 and 8,000 to 10,000 before. In other words: most of the gain comes well before you reach the count. The goal isn't to hit 10,000 — it's not to stay at 3,000.

So why zombies?

Because knowing isn't enough.

Everyone knows they should move. And 1.8 billion people don't. Information has never got anyone out of the door: public health campaigns have repeated the same figures for twenty years, and the inactivity curve keeps rising.

A game, though, gets people out. When Pokémon Go came out, a study of 31,793 activity-tracker wearers measured +1,473 steps a day among engaged players — 26% more than before. But it measured something even more interesting: the effect faded after three to four weeks. Except among the most engaged players, who stayed above their starting level.

That is the whole lesson, and it is the problem RunRunFar tries to solve. Catching creatures on your own gets old. So here, you don't run for yourself: you run for your town, the one you really live in, with the neighbours who have signed up there. The zombies advance by 5 km a day per resident, whether anyone runs or not. And on Sunday at 9 pm, they attack. If nobody has run, the town loses something.

Skipping a session is easy. Letting the others down, much less so.

All of this is a decoy. We never wanted to save an imaginary town: we want to get you outside.

When do we start?

Your town is already in the game — all 34,875 towns of France are there. If nobody defends it, it is overrun by zombies.

Join my town Install the app

This is not medical advice. This page summarises published research; it does not replace a doctor. If you have a known health condition, if you are getting back into exercise after a long break, or if you haven't done anything for years, talk to your doctor before you start — and begin by walking. The point of these two requests is precisely that they can be met at any pace.

The sources

World Health Organization, Physical activity, fact sheet updated in 2024 — prevalence of inactivity, excess risk of death, cost to health systems.
World Health Organization, Obesity and overweight, 2025 fact sheet — overweight and obesity worldwide, deaths attributable to a high BMI.
Santé publique France, National and regional prevalence of physical activity and sedentary behaviour (in French), BEH 2024 — 2021 Health Barometer.
Lee D-C et al., Leisure-time running reduces all-cause and cardiovascular mortality risk, J Am Coll Cardiol 2014 — 55,137 adults, 15 years of follow-up.
Pedisic Z et al., Is running associated with a lower risk of all-cause, cardiovascular and cancer mortality, and is the more the better?, Br J Sports Med 2020 — meta-analysis, 232,149 participants.
Paluch AE et al., Daily steps and all-cause mortality: a meta-analysis of 15 international cohorts, Lancet Public Health 2022 — 47,471 adults.
Althoff T et al., Influence of Pokémon Go on physical activity, J Med Internet Res 2016 — 31,793 activity-tracker wearers.