When the sun set on March 19, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan ended. For Florida freshman distance runner Oussama Allaoui, it symbolized not just the fulfillment of the fourth pillar of Islam, called “sawm,” but also a return to a normal training regimen after just over four weeks of daily fasting.
During the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, adherents must fast from sunrise to sunset. Lack of proper daily fueling brings a host of challenges for athletes — especially endurance athletes, like Allaoui.
“Their window of fueling, opportunity to fuel and recover for training out on the track, weights … is shortened,” said Lauren Perez, UF’s senior performance dietician. “It poses some challenges just with changes to sleep schedule, changes to training schedule, and then their fueling strategy throughout the day also changes too.”
Given the shorter timeframe of the Islamic calendar, with either 354 or 355 days in a year compared to 365 or 366 in the Gregorian calendar, the start date of Ramadan changes every year. This winter, the beginning of Ramadan on Feb. 17 happened to coincide with the most important part of Allaoui’s and Florida’s indoor season.
Four days before Ramadan began, on Feb. 13, the 21-year-old Moroccan ran a 3:57.47 mile at the BU David Hemery Valentine Invitational, marking his place as the third-fastest man in UF history and one of the top contenders at the upcoming SEC Indoor Championships.
With that performance under his belt, Allaoui then had to make his familiar annual transition to a lighter training load in response to his fasting obligations.
“We’ve cut out a couple of his training efforts in the week,” Florida assistant distance coach Will Palmer said. “He’s not running twice in a day right now, just with the added stress of fasting consistently.”
The biggest change to Allaoui’s training came in the timing of his workouts, given his restricted windows to eat food. He completed easy runs to stack mileage in the morning, right after consuming his morning meal, known as “suhur.” Harder workouts were reserved for the evening, after he breaks his fast with his evening meal, known as “iftar.”
“I go with coach Palmer — we talked about that before Ramadan,” Allaoui said. “He asked me about ‘What time do you want?’ … If we have a hard workout, we do it in the evening.”
Timing meals close to exercise ensures Allaoui can get the most out of his workouts and start his recovery from a less depleted state.
Despite Allaoui’s evening sessions consisting of more challenging workouts, night training presented an easier solution for nutrition from a fasting perspective than the mornings. Palmer said Allaoui typically would warm up just before breaking his fast, then take iftar before commencing the evening workout.
In the morning sessions, after Allaoui ran, he couldn’t replenish the energy exerted for nearly 12 hours. This meant suhur, the morning meal, had to contain optimal nutrition on the days when he ran in the morning.
“We try to get that first meal to be probably his biggest meal of the day,” Perez said. “Really hitting carbohydrates, protein, and then also typically trying to get in some kind of easy carbohydrate drink.”
While shifting training schedules, which are typically rigid and unyielding, can be uncomfortable for any runner, Allaoui has become accustomed to the changes.
Nearly all of Morocco’s population is Muslim, according to the U.S. State Department data from 2022 — including Allaoui’s training group at home. Adjusting training plans is nothing new, and he typically experiences this month alongside training partners who are fasting as well.
“I have good energy in Ramadan,” Allaoui said. “I think all Muslims are like that. My teammates in Morocco, we get good energy in Ramadan, because you train before sunset, and you go directly to eat. … I never feel bad in Ramadan.”
Allaoui is the first athlete Palmer has ever coached who observes Ramadan, but he sees benefits from the practice of fasting that could reflect in other aspects of distance running.
“It sounds like culturally, with training, Oussama said there are just droves of people training at night,” Palmer said. “A lot of times, if you find success in distance running, it’s through shared suffering and shared hard work. So I don’t know, it seemed really cool how it culturally kind of works in Morocco.”
There are provisions in Islam’s holy book, the Quran, that allow for circumstantial exceptions from fasting during Ramadan. At the SEC Championships in College Station, Texas, from Feb. 26-28, Allaoui’s racing fell under one of these exceptions.
Before he broke his fast, however, Allaoui had to check in with one person to ensure it was inside the parameters of Ramadan.
“I need good energy if I want to compete good,” Allaoui said. “I called my mom, I asked about that, and she said, ‘You can eat.’”
When an athlete who has been in an extended period of daily fasting begins fueling normally for a competition, Perez said, responses can vary from athlete to athlete. Potential drawbacks could include gastrointestinal issues and a sleep schedule the athlete isn’t used to.
If Allaoui was experiencing any side effects from eating on race day, he didn’t show it. On the anchor leg for Florida’s distance medley relay, he anchored the Gators to a runner-up finish prior to their disqualification. Two days later, he matched that finish in the mile, placing second at 4:02.80.
With both Ramadan and the indoor season over, Allaoui’s attention turns toward the outdoor season, where he hopes a normal training load can help push him to success during the spring.
“I want to qualify to nationals in the outdoor season,” Allaoui said. “And I want to run my PB [personal best] in the 1,500 meters.”
Contact Paul Hof-Mahoney at phof-mahoney@alligator.org and follow him on X at @phofmahoney.
Paul is a senior in his fourth semester on the track and field/cross country beat for The Alligator. In his free time, you can increasingly see him jogging around Gainesville or endlessly falling deeper down the rabbit hole that is track Twitter.
