Food and water can only be consumed in the early morning and late evening hours. Most 5-kilometer cross country meets are held during the daylight hours, when Isa's stomach must remain empty.
"It's somewhat psychological, like you feel your stomach start to tighten up," Isa says of the first week of the Ramadan fast. "Your body's not used to going without food and gets weak for the first six or seven days," Isa says. "After that you get used to it."
Still, Isa isn't complaining. He finds fasting during Ramadan to be a relaxing and joyful experience. And he loves competing. He's a leader of his squad and considered one of the best runners in the area.
Teamwork and commitment are qualities critical to both his faith and his sport, qualities he learned by example from his parents. The discipline they taught him extends also to his academic life, where he takes honors classes and has a 4.26 grade point average. Away from school, he's studying for a career in pharmacy and volunteers at the Bert Fish Medical Center pharmacy.
One of four children, Isa was born in Daytona Beach to parents who are Sunni Muslims of Macedonian heritage. Both came to the United States from Albania. His mother, Spresa , arrived when she was an infant and his father, Muhamed, moved to the area in 1982. They have three other children.
Fasting during Ramadan is one of the so-called five pillars of Islam and a major demonstration of faith for all adult Muslims. The fast celebrates the glory of Allah and thanks him for revealing their holy book, the Quran, Muslims believe. Ramadan begins at sunset with the appearance of the new moon -- this year it occurred Oct. 5 -- and ends with a festival named Eid al-Fitr, which translates into Feast of the Fast-Breaking.
Idris Muhammad, a spokesman for the Islamic Center at Daytona Beach, says that fasting doesn't necessarily present a problem for young Muslim athletes.
Hakeem Olajuwon, the Nigerian-born star of the Houston Rockets' two NBA championship teams in the mid-1990s, developed a practice during Ramadan of waking before sunrise and consuming exactly seven dates and drinking a gallon of water that would carry him through sunset.
He established himself as the Barracudas' top runner two years ago as a sophomore, when he set a personal best 17 minutes and 2 seconds at a regional meet.
He recently returned to competition after a year-long hiatus to concentrate on academics. With no restrictions on eating and drinking, he's turned in several strong showings, including a win at the school's Barracuda Invitational last week and a third-place overall finish two weeks ago in the high school division of the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Invitational.
During the fasting period, Isa says he's going to try things such as eating larger breakfasts before sunrise. He's talking with his doctor about possibly using nutritional supplements, which is not banned during Ramadan.
Isa trains during Ramadan in the evening and early mornings, when he's allowed to eat and drink. Often his father, who played soccer as a young man, follows in a car while Isa runs.
The first of two meets during the Ramadan fast is the Five Star Conference meet in DeLand late in the afternoon on Wednesday, nearly 10 hours into Isa's daily fast. Isa is banking that his body will have had enough time to adjust after two weeks of fasting, but he's also realistic.
As a competitive sport, cross-country running began in England in the early 19th century with a game called "hare and hounds" or "paper chasing." The "hares" started a few minutes before the others and left a trail of paper pieces to be followed shortly after by the "hounds."
· Cross-country running was introduced in the Olympic Games at Stockholm in 1912 and dropped after the 1924 games at Paris because it was considered unsuitable for summer competition.
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