Apple Watch has a special Thanksgiving Activity achievement, run/walk 5K on Nov 24 to earn unique award + iMessage sticker

Apple Watch owners can get a special Activity Challenge for Thanksgiving, this November 24th. Apple Watch owners are waking up to notifications on their wrist announcing a special achievement in the Activity app, the first time Apple has done this. To receive the reward, users must run or walk 5K (3.1 miles) on November 24 using Apple’s Workout app or any third-party app that integrates workouts with HealthKit.

If users do this, they will receive a unique Achievement medal in their iPhone Activity app (pictured above) and a special iMessage sticker to send to their friends.

This kind of contextual achievement is brand new to watchOS; although the facility to do Activity Challenges has existed in watchOS for a while, this is the first time the feature has been used. Users must walk or run 5K on Thanksgiving Day (wheelchair workouts also count) and have these efforts recorded as official Apple Watch Workouts to receive the rewards.

So far, we have only received reports of this Activity Challenge appearing for customers in the United States. As not all countries in the world celebrate Thanksgiving, it would make sense that Apple only enables the Challenge in countries that do … like the US. However, it isn’t clear if Apple will have an equivalent challenge for the rest of the world on different days of significance so everyone can earn the special medal and iMessage sticker.

Here’s how the achievement displays in the iPhone Activity app, if you can get it.

The text reads:

Thanksgiving Day Challenge

Earn this special achievement on Thanksgiving Day, November 24th when you complete a walk, run or wheelchair workout of at least 5K (3.1 mi) in the Apple Watch Workout app, or any app that records these workouts into the iPhone Health app. You’ll also earn a special Messages app sticker!

Apple Watch Activity ‘completionists’ will now need to schedule some time to run or walk 5K on November 24th in addition to the usual Thanksgiving Day festivities. As well as being the first time-limited Activity achievement, it is also the first to feature a Messages app sticker as a reward. All achievements to date earn 3D medals which can be viewed in the Achievements tab on the iPhone Activity app.

Will you be running 5K on Thursday to get the special Activity achievement? Let us know in the comments what you think.

Thanks @ldwgg for the tip!