Book excerpt: In recent years, endurance athletes, bodybuilders, and long-distance runners such as Ruth Heidrich, Scott Jurek, Rich Roll, Brendan Brazier, Robert Cheeke, and many others have destroyed the notion that you cannot be a top-flight competitor on a plant-based diet and upended the stereotype that veganism means weakness, placidity, and passivity. But are there deeper connections between veganism and running, for example, that reach beyond attaining peak performance to other aspects of being vegan: such as living lightly on the land, caring for other-than-human life, and connecting to our animal bodies? The fifteen writers in Running, Eating, Thinking wager that there are, and they explore in manifold ways how those connections might be made. From coping with cancer to reflecting on the need of the confined animal to run free, from Buddhist ideas of nonviolence to harnessing the breath for singing and running, and from extolling the glories of lentils to committing oneself to the long run in animal activism, Running, Eating, Thinking is a pioneering anthology that may redefine your thinking about veganism and running.