2,207 Join Get Moving Challenge, Log 708 Million Steps and 3.4 Million Exercise Minutes

A small Department of Surgery team wins Gold in the 10-week employee competition, showing how commitment can reshape daily habits

Surgery ADMINistriders Get Moving Challenge team
The Surgery ADMINistriders were a small but mighty team in the 2026 Get Moving Challenge. Photo by Travis Stanley

A few years ago, someone in the Duke Department of Surgery developed a theory for how to win the annual Get Moving Challenge wellness competition, where individuals and teams of co-workers compete for the most steps and exercise minutes.

Teams can range from five to 11 members, and the Surgery ADMINistriders team hypothesis was a “less is more” approach would yield a core group of dedicated members who pushed the unit to the top.

“If you can get people who are committed to a higher amount of steps daily it helps with your average as a team,” said Ashley Shue, Human Resources Representative and Surgery ADMINistriders team captain.

Last year, the theory paid off as five dedicated Surgery ADMINistriders logged 1,465,746 steps to win the Get Moving Challenge’s Platinum League.

This year, even after they recruited practically a full new team, six Surgery ADMINistriders tallied the most steps of any Get Moving Challenge squad while winning the Gold League with 1,122,664 steps.

In all, 2,207 Duke staff and faculty participated in the annual challenge run by LIVE FOR LIFE, Duke’s employee wellness program, forming 225 teams who logged a total of 708,086,791 steps and 3,418,165 total exercise minutes over the 10-week challenge.

Prizes for individual winners included a gym or picnic bag, measuring cups, head lamp and assorted LIVE FOR LIFE store items; prizes for team winners include a picnic or tote bag and assorted LIVE FOR LIFE items.

For Surgery ADMINistriders, the dedication for each team member to record at least 20,000 steps each day of the challenge meant a lasting change in habits.

“It became for this 10-week period part of the culture of the team to think about walking whenever we can, taking steps whenever we can,” said Joshua Perin, Director of Communications for the Department of Surgery and a first-year team member.

When Perin needed to meet with team member Corey Lyon, a Senior Business Manager, for example, they made it a walking meeting.

“There’s a culture shift during the challenge, too,” Perin said.

Shue used her walking pad whenever possible but also used step goals as a reason to take work breaks, walking laps around the seventh floor of Duke University Hospital with the other members of the team: Jawanna Bell, Graduate Medical Education Program Coordinator with the Department of Pathology; Rebecca Conti, Director of Finance and June Durand, Administrative Assistant.

“It actually helps a lot when you’re bogged down and you just need a little 15-minute walk (to reset),” Shue said.

That type of connection is precisely what LIVE FOR LIFE Health Promotion Program Manager Brian Zelanko sought to create.

"This year was about building both as individuals and as teams and a sense of pride and connection across Duke," Zelanko said. "The goal was to create something motivating: not just to help people regain confidence in themselves, but also to strengthen their trust in one another."

Shue said the habits she and her Surgery ADMINistriders team members developed are the type they will remain devoted to through the year – until the next Get Moving Challenge, too.

“It’s something we tend to stick with,” Shue said. “Sometimes we fall out of the habit of doing all the steps, but it’s something that we definitely continue in our normal daily lives.”

Here are top finishers:

Team Steps

Silver: Sweat to Dry Dressings with 660,221 steps

Gold: Surgery ADMINistriders with 1,122,664 steps

Platinum: Making TrACCS with 948,340 steps

Team Exercise Minutes

Silver: The OG Holy Walkamoles with 3,816 minutes

Gold: Investigational Drug Steppers with 6,864 minutes

Top Individual Steps

1. Jo Ann Byrd with 2,515,253 steps

2. Jennifer Boone with 2,485,767 steps

3. Rachel Locascio with 2,430,836 steps

Top Individual Exercise Minutes

1. Jo Ann Byrd with 26,902 minutes

2. Jordan Goldbach with 20,403 minutes

3. Jane Jones with 17,250 minutes

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