“We Loved to Run is at once a propulsive read and an intimate exploration of the ways young women navigate relationships with their bodies, their desires, their anger, their tenderness, their fears, and—perhaps most fearsome of all—their power. Whether or not you’ve ever been in their shoes, the six teammates at the heart of this novel, and the torturous, rapturous experience of racing together, are made vivid through Stephanie Reents’s exquisite prose.”—Leah Hager Cohen, author of Strangers and Cousins

“We Loved to Run jumps out of the gates and doesn’t let up, not even for a second—it’s blistering, it’s unputdownable. With razor-sharp wit, compassion, and knowing insight, Reents interrogates identity, sacrifice, friendship, the marriage between pleasure and pain, and the pressure cooker of college sports, of the desire for greatness, of the price we pay for our ambition. It’s a brilliant meditation on the body, how we abuse it, how we love it, and all its limitations and betrayals. It’s an ode to obsession, to addiction to running itself, and all the contradictions that lie within giving yourself over to something you hate to love and love to hate. Every line is visceral and poetic, brutal and psychologically astute. And she perfectly portrays the fraught, complicated family of a team. What can I say? It’s perfect: troubling in all the best ways. And a good reminder that no matter how fast you are, you can’t outrun yourself, or your past.”—Marisa Crane, author of A Sharp Endless Need