I've been lucky enough in my life not to have had a family member (at least one I'm in contact with) be affected by Alzheimer's. However, my grandmother, Minta, did have vascular dementia, which shares many symptoms with Alzheimer's. It eventually had a big effect on her and also my family. When she went into a home towards the end of her life, I also got to see the effect Alzheimer's and dementia had on other sufferers and their families. It would often be a strange and distressing experience to visit her there and it made an impact on me.

So when someone asked if I would like to participate in this Total Warrior 12k run to support Alzheimer's Research UK, I thought to myself "yeah, I should do that. It would be a nice way to honour Minta's memory. Remind myself of the old times before the dementia. Like when I was young and she'd take me to fast food places and would be adding gin to her fizzy drinks. Or when she'd be driving around and swearing because she was too short to see over the steering wheel. Or when she would ask me about my opinion on something and then angrily tell me to agree with her while I thought about my answer. Or when the family would play Trivial Pursuit and she would talk over me and try to answer my questions before I got a chance to open my mouth even though she wouldn't get any points for it. Or when she'd say 'you have an answer for everything' because she just asked me a question about something and I dared to know the answer. Or when she tried cheating the one time we played the card game Snap and I shouted at her about what a cheat she is for 5 full minutes and refused to play again."

I then stopped thinking about the old times before I annoyed myself further and comitted myself to doing the run anyway.

Half-joking aside, this is a very worthy cause that affects a lot of people and I'll be pushing myself for it so please donate if you can.

You can find more information about the event and see all the obstacles I'll be potentially be breaking my bones on by visiting this webpage: https://totalwarrior.co.uk/distances/12k-warrior/.