On a rare, perfectly blue-skied Saturday in London, five of us from A Life in a Day laced up our trainers and walked 13 miles through the city in aid of Alzheimer’s Society. This is why it meant more than the miles we trekked.
London, to its credit, showed up for us. Clear skies, mild temperatures, and just enough city buzz to keep spirits high. Exactly what you need to coax a small but determined team to a start line at 8:30am on a weekend. For a group that spends its working days building experiences rooted in empathy and human understanding, it felt right to put our feet where our values are.
The cause was Alzheimer’s Society, and the connection is closer to home than you might expect. We recently completed the development of our latest immersive patient experience, one that places participants inside the patient reality of living with Alzheimer’s, from early diagnosis through to the progression of the disease. It is some of the most affecting work we have done.
As with all of our experiences, a small internal team piloted it before launch (one of many quality checks we undertake). What emerged from that process was something we didn’t anticipate: a quiet, honest reckoning with just how many of us had been touched by Alzheimer’s in our own lives. Colleagues shared stories. Some quietly. Some not so quietly. The disease has a long reach, and in that room, it reached almost everyone.
The walk became a way of carrying that forward. Thirteen miles gives you a lot of time to think, and for our team – a mix of job functions and life stories – the miles became a moving reflection on the patients and communities we have the privilege of working alongside every day. We are not separate from the experiences we build. We are, all of us, also patients, carers, and members of support networks. We simply happen to be working on something we believe can help.
There was a moment somewhere in the middle miles when that felt very clear: we weren’t just walking to raise money. We were walking to honour everyone whose story has shaped what we do, and to acknowledge that those stories don’t begin and end in a simulation. They live in families, in communities, in the people sitting next to us at work.
We crossed the finish line in 4.5 hours. Our founder Mark had, of course, been determined to win from the start – a competitive spirit that is, at the very least, reliable. The time is largely beside the point. What matters is that together we raised over £3,000 for the Alzheimer’s Society, and A Life in a Day is matching our total, so the total impact is double what each of us put in.
If Alzheimer’s has touched your life, or if you work in care, research, or any part of the system that surrounds this disease, we hope this small effort feels like it belongs to you too.
