AUSTIN, Texas — Yusuf Bizimana is running on fumes these days.

The University of Texas long sprinter isn’t out of shape. Instead, he’s observing Ramadan, in which Muslims fast from dawn until dusk.

“Most of these workouts are when I'm fasting throughout the day, and yeah, it does get challenging,” said the sophomore from London. “I rely on Allah [God] pushing me through those sessions. I rely on him making it easy for me.”

While Bizimana is used to setting a fast pace on the track, he gets a pause away from it during Ramadan.

“It’s a break in my normal routine that I can just reflect on everything I've done in my life,” Bizimana said.

His daily Ramadan routine includes eating Suhoor [pre-dawn meal] before 5:30 a.m. and his five daily prayers at the Nueces Mosque near campus.

“Everything here, Alhamdulillah [praise God], is taken care of. I don't even need to lift a finger,” Bizimana said about being at the mosque during Iftar [breaking of fast].

He breaks his fast alongside other Muslims in the community around 8 p.m, but with a custom meal plan laid out by one of the Longhorns' team nutritionists.

“We sat down at the beginning of Ramadan and talked through what he was doing, how he is feeling and how we can work with that and make it better,” said Texas assistant sports dietitian Samantha Fuhrmann.

“Everything she’s done for me is great,” Bizimana said. “She's taking care of my diet. She tells me what time to eat, what to drink, what to put in my body.”

Bizimana is faced with squeezing in the essentials for competition in the few overnight hours that he’s not fasting.

“The whole schedule is completely flipped. My sleeping pattern is out the window,” Bizimana said. “Everything is upside down right now, but I'm still getting quality work in.”

He’s also worked with Texas assistant coach Pete Watson to move practice from afternoons to mornings, when Bizimana has higher energy levels followed by a longer recovery time.

“This year, we communicated really well, knocked out his 800 [meter] qualifier at Texas Relays and then we've taken this whole month, just allow him to train, to recover,” Hansen said.

“Ramadan shows me how tough I am,” said Bizimana about training during the month, “strength-wise, mentally, physically. My peers, my training partners, they're like, ‘How do you do what you do?'"

It's a physical and mental test of will in a month that’s unlike any other.

“It's more about maintaining than actually gaining anything,” Bizimana said. “I don't want to lose anything. I don't want to deplete or like get some reversibility in my training. If I can stay at fitness where I was before Ramadan and just maintain it towards the end, then I'm in a good place.”

A good place for his body. An even better place for his soul.

“Ramadan is just me getting closer to my creator,” Bizimana said. “Everything I want to be in life is through Him. I just want to please my creator.”