Sunday mornings in Singapore usually belong to kopi (local coffee) and a lie-in. On 13 September 2026, more than 610 people gave up both for a 5km walk around The Kallang at Samsung Singapore’s first-ever Galaxy Walkathon.
The event ran on Samsung Health and the latest Galaxy smartwatches, cost nothing to join, and supported the Singapore Heart Foundation (SHF). Sign-ups went past Samsung’s initial participant targets, so plenty of people clearly wanted a workout with company and a finish line.
If your smartwatch tells you to stand up more often than your mum does, this one’s for you. Most people file heart health under problems for their parents’ generation, even though that same watch has been logging their heart rate all along. Samsung’s bet at The Kallang was that all this data gets a lot more interesting once it leaves the screen and joins a crowd.
6,100 Steps for a 61st Birthday
The step target is a clever bit of birthday maths. SG61 is shorthand for Singapore’s 61st birthday, so the scenic 5km route was set at roughly 6,100 steps, or 100 for every year. That’s a friendlier ask than the 10,000-step goal you see all over the internet, and a much easier figure to remember.
Walkers set off at 7am from the National Stadium at 1 Stadium Drive, looped through The Kallang precinct, and crossed the finish line back inside the stadium. Registration came with an exclusive event T-shirt and a goodie bag, which explains all that light blue along the way.
A step count can do something a distance can’t. Five kilometres feels abstract when you’re busy chatting with friends. A count on your wrist creeping towards 6,100 turns a stroll into a quest with a clear end point.
It helps that the walk finished somewhere most people only see from the stands at a concert or a football match. Crossing the line inside the National Stadium gives an easy walk a dose of main-character energy, with zero pressure to race anyone.
Your Smartwatch Did the Counting
Samsung built the walkathon around its newest wearables, the Galaxy Watch9 and Galaxy Watch Ultra2, which went on sale in Singapore on 14 August 2026. The Watch9 follows the Galaxy Watch8 series unveiled in July 2025. Anyone who tried one at The Kallang was holding a watch that had been in shops for barely a month.
After the finish, the crowd moved on to the Walkers’ Village. It had hands-on time with Galaxy devices running Samsung Health, a guided community cool-down session, and partner booths. For anyone eyeing a smartwatch, those Samsung Health stations were the best part of the village: trying a watch after 6,100 steps of your own tells you more than any spec sheet. The cool-down comes a close second, because stretching is the easiest part of any workout to skip.
Brands have been turning fitness data into games for years. Apple gives out digital badges for special Apple Watch Activity Challenges. Garmin supports Garmin Run Club Singapore, where coached sessions are built on Garmin devices and data. Singapore has even had a fitness challenge built around genetic testing that offered S$5,000 a month for getting fit. Samsung’s twist was taking the stats offline, onto a real course with hundreds of people chasing the same target.
Then came the prizes. Walkers had a chance to win a Galaxy Watch Ultra2 or a Galaxy Watch9, and a prize wheel at the Walkers’ Village added some carnival-style luck. For an event that cost S$0 to enter, going home with a brand-new smartwatch is a sweet deal for a few hours of walking.
Heart Health Has No Age Limit
All those steps were for more than bragging rights. The Galaxy Walkathon was held in support of SHF’s heart health movement, and Samsung has pledged a donation to the foundation’s ongoing programmes. A donation drive invited participants to chip in too.
“Exercising is an important way to work towards a healthier heart,” said Lim Kiat, Assistant Director of Strategic Partnerships and Philanthropy at SHF. He added that the foundation was “pleased to partner with Samsung Singapore for the Galaxy Walkathon to encourage more Singaporeans to get active and shape the future of our nation’s heart health together with us”.
Jeffrey Hahn, President of Samsung Electronics Singapore, spoke about what technology can do. “As more people look for ways to live more active lives, we believe technology can help make healthy habits easier to build,” he said. He called every step taken that day “a positive step towards better health and wellbeing”.
Both quotes point to something that’s easy to ignore in your twenties. Your heart feels like a problem for later when nothing aches and your next check-up is years away. A watch that turns a daily walk into a streak makes the habit painless to start today, and starting early is the whole point.
Round One at The Kallang
The Galaxy Walkathon is the first event in a multi-year partnership between Samsung and The Kallang Group, the team behind the sports precinct. The two announced the partnership on 9 September 2026, and Samsung is now The Kallang’s official consumer electronics partner. The deal puts close to 500 of Samsung’s AI (artificial intelligence) TVs and monitors into hospitality suites and event spaces around the grounds.
The walk was part of the National Stadium Experience, a line-up of sports tryouts, fitness gaming, and outdoor movie screenings. That meant walkers could stretch out and then wander over to the AL!VE Artisan Market. To close things out, The Kallang Group said it would light up the National Stadium in red that evening. For a day spent looking after hearts, that’s a fitting way to end.
Samsung calls the Galaxy Walkathon the first of many wellness initiatives, and this formula deserves a sequel. A goal that means something, a finish line inside the National Stadium, and a watch that shows your progress were enough to get more than 610 people out of bed on a weekend. Heart health stops sounding like a lecture about cholesterol when it’s something you do with friends before brunch.
🗓️ Date: Sunday, 13 September 2026
⏰ Time: 7am start
📍 Location: National Stadium, 1 Stadium Drive, The Kallang
👟 Route: 5km around The Kallang precinct, about 6,100 steps
🎟️ Entry: Free
🎁 Perks: Exclusive event T-shirt, goodie bag, and chances to win a Galaxy Watch Ultra2 or Galaxy Watch9
❤️ Cause: In support of the Singapore Heart Foundation
Missed out this time? Follow the Samsung Singapore Newsroom to hear about the next Galaxy Walkathon and the other wellness initiatives Samsung has planned, and keep an eye on The Kallang’s events calendar for what’s next at the stadium. Until then, the step counter on your wrist makes a decent training partner for 6,100.
Photos and Visuals courtesy of Samsung Electronics Singapore.
Read us first on Google: add DANAMIC as a preferred source and our stories show up more in your Top Stories and AI results.
