Ramalamadingdong

F and i have a rolling date to run sunday afternoons. this past sunday he texted me this:
run w o me... fasting statred tod. feel too waek. sory.
even on his shittiest days, F can spell passably well, so i infer that fasting has really fucked him up.

wait. fasting?!?

for all his afghan-ness, it never occurred to me that F might be a practicing muslim. with his new acura, weakness for blackjack & roulette tables and affinity for barbados rum, F seems, well, like ME. american. corrupted and secular. so the fact that he celebrates ramadan was an eye-opener, as was the reality behind the fasting the holiday entails.

-- so, when can you eat? i asked him yesterday. at 6:30 in the morning he sounded like an old man, nasal and wavering.
-- well, i woke up at 5:40 – he paused for a gulp of air. ah, that was filling – and i’ll be able to eat at 7:20.
-- so, like in an hour.
-- no, like tonight. you fast from sunup to – gulp & swaller; ah, nummy – to sundown.
-- dude, that's harsh. how long do you do this?
-- a month.
-- a MONTH?? i screeched. that is outrageous. F is my main man, my munchable morsel, for the XC race in november. this fasting bit is a definite wrench in my works.

and even for a sedentary human bean, fasting for a month cannot be healthy, can it? to gorge yourself at night and fall into bed? or do you sleep during the day and graze all night? is it understood that, in the muslim world, people will be pretty much dazed and tottery for the next month? do businesses and stock markets close during that time when people will not be making very wise decisions?

i did a little research and came up with dr. shahid athar’s writings on the medical benefits of the ramadan fast:

There is a peace and tranquility for those who fast during the month of Ramadan. Personal hostility is at a minimum, and the crime rate decreases. This psychological improvement could be related to better stabilization of blood glucose during fasting as hypoglycemia after eating, aggravates behavior changes.

or it could be related to everybody being passed out on the kitchen floor! o folly folly folly. dr. athar also makes a case for not drinking during fasting time, arguing that dehydration is GOOD for you because it makes PLANTS live longer. right. dr. athar obviously wrote this treatise while dazed and tottery himself. it probably took him all month.

and what if you’re an athlete? your choice seems to be:

• train late in the day, on fumes
• train early, then eek out the rest of the day on a major glycogen bonk
  

either choice sounds like misery to me, and hell on your bod. did muhammad ali celebrate ramadan? if smokin’ joe frazer were smart, he’d’ve scheduled all his matches with ali in during ramadan.

ever-respectful of other people and their crackhead beliefs, i don’t tear apart the whole ramadan/fasting thing before F in his weakened state; but over the next couple weeks you can be sure i’ll be working on making him feel guilty about leaving me in the lurch.

because that is MY religion.