17 Runs
The Unbeaten Path to Unlock Life's True Potential
About rising above troubling circumstances and leaning on one’s chosen family for support, 17 Runs models self-improvement.
Garnet Morris and Olivia Chadwick’s motivational friendship memoir–cum–self-help book 17 Runs models purposeful living through individual transformation.
Chadwick and Morris, born “two-and-a-half decades apart,” met in 2011 as a personal trainer and a client. Chadwick had moved to Canada from England as a teenager, and Morris was a Saskatchewan native. Morris had achieved considerable entrepreneurial success; Chadwick was working on building her business and raising a child. Morris wanted to increase his stamina and endurance for the ultimate challenge of Alberta’s 100-mile team-based Kananaskis Relay. Beyond coaching and training, the pair began a friendship based on mutual support and guidance.
Each chapter focuses on a shared run and dialogue between Chadwick and Morris, along with an extracted lesson regarding the topic or challenge discussed. In general, these conversations involve imparted life wisdom from Morris, as narrated and reacted to by Chadwick. There are instances of pushback and miscommunication, but the speakers are complementary on the whole.
The duo’s backstories are included throughout: Morris’s midlife physical transformation is highlighted, including major weight loss and breaking from smoking, and Chadwick discusses perfectionism and her son’s health struggles. The contemplation of “chosen families” adds broad meaning, which can also be extracted from the book’s reflections on the duo’s common experiences with dysfunctional childhoods, family suicides, and sexual molestation, as well as their strong desire to rise above troubling circumstances—or “get up off the mat.” However, it is not always clear which author a specific italicized personal story relates to, leading to stalls.
The prose is often evocative, as with descriptions of the natural beauty encountered during the featured runs, such as “rounding a snowy corner” at dawn as the night sky lightens to “deep blue” or the Kananaskis Relay’s landscape of “charcoal-colored mountains, crystalline lakes, and hills upon hills of spruce trees.” The exchanges covered herein, though, are condensed versions of dialogues that continued for weeks or months; nuance is exchanged for a smooth flow, not reflective of interruptions like the physical strains of running or distractions along the course.
The lessons shared throughout have some general applicability, and the book’s succinct final summations and appendices include resources and personal assessments for putting its points into practice. Among the topics addressed are familiar self-help concepts including incremental goal setting and positive visualizations. The chapters regarding determining one’s core values and developing a sense of reflexive generosity are more distinctive and holistic. Salient chapter summaries and guided exercises are included for further individual development.
With guidance for improving one’s physical, emotional, and motivational resilience, 17 Runs is an encompassing self-help book that celebrates the significance of mentoring friendships.
Reviewed by
Meg Nola
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
