Tens of thousands of runners from more than 100 different countries will be at the starting line for the Boston Marathon in Hopkinton on Monday. Among them will be Junaid Muhammad, a human rights advocate and the first-ever Pakistani journalist to run the race. Muhammad joined GBH’s Morning Edition co-host Jeremy Siegel to talk about running, training and fasting during the holy month of Ramadan. This transcript has been lightly edited.

Jeremy Siegel: I've got to tell people listening that you've got this incredible blazer on. You have a patch for the Boston Marathon 2023, and other patches also for the London Marathon, the Berlin Marathon. You have dual flags on your lapel. So you're one of two runners from your country running the Boston Marathon this year. What made you want to do it, and what does it mean to you to be doing it?

Junaid Muhammad: Thank you, Jeremy. I started more serious running three years ago, but I come from a country where people are not very much seriously involved in the sport. And running is a sport which comes a lot later, after cricket and maybe some craziness about the football. But cricket is something which is a big bond between all the countries of South Asia, which is Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, even now Afghanistan.

But the thing is, the other sport is now especially taking very, very rightful attention and importance from the people, especially after COVID. And that was a big moment when people realized how they need to take care of themselves. Self care, health, fitness is so much more important.

And running is something which is probably one of the things you can just start on your own. You need a good pair of shoes and maybe shorts and T-shirt, and you're right there, out there. You don't need a big stadium. You don't need a big infrastructure system.

And that's when I started running. And that turned into a desire to run marathons. And I wanted to give my friends, my family and the people who follow my work a message: how it is so important to take care of yourself, of your health. And one should be involved in a sport. You do it for yourself, you do it for your future. And that's how I started. And then I ran it's the Istanbul Marathon in 2021, and this was the time when I just wanted to be able to prepare myself and train to run world major marathons.

How the Boston Marathon thing happened — the whole credit goes to the very dynamic South Asian community in the state of Massachusetts.

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Siegel: And so now you're running this historic marathon. As people who run or don't run might know, a huge part of running is fueling up and usually eating a ton when you're running, you know, miles and miles and miles. You're currently and have been fasting for the last few weeks observing the holiday of Ramadan. How has that affected your training?

Muhammad: Well, you enjoy, but you do sacrifice a lot because the window of fasting is like more than 15, 16 hours. And the time you're left with, after you break your fast — and wait until the next early morning, until you start fasting again — you can't get enough water and the nutrition in that time. But that's something we've been doing, I don't know, for several years. I'm fasting since the age of seven, and this is something which goes on regardless of anything.

And now it's a big moment that the Boston Marathon and few other marathons happening at the same time during this month. So I did have a bit of a challenging situation with dehydration and some part of the nutrition. But until now, I have fasted. It's only that the runners who are going to run the marathon — like, maybe last 48 hours or 72 hours are very crucial, and that's when they need to, you know, do the carb-loading and drink lots of water, get really good sleep to be ready for the marathon, then they might need to stop fasting. But the whole month, it started end of the March, I did fast.

It's kind of traditional, with the religious element, but it was something that made it more exciting. You know that you're following your routine but then you are preparing for something really amazing. And I have enjoyed it so far — but I do feel like I'm short on water.

Siegel: So you mentioned the South Asian community in Massachusetts. You're running for the South Asian Circle of Hopkinton. Tell us a little bit more about them, and what it means to you to be running for them in this race.

Muhammad: This is something of a collaboration or partnership, which entirely happened because of the South Asian community in Massachusetts. The South Asian Circle of Hopkinton has been working for the community the last few years. And it's a dynamic community of people representing the South Asian community in this state, and especially in Hopkinton. But this kind of experience did not happen before. And the credit goes to obviously to the Hopkinton board and the people who thought it important to involve more and more local organizations, to give them a chance to raise funds and to be at the Boston Marathon.

So that started a year ago, Jeremy, when I started some emails from Pakistan to the U.S., and then we just started getting connected with the people.

It was like kind of a very challenging period of waiting to get the ballot when the Boston Athletic Association gives out the bibs. And then it was like a random selection — you don't know if you get your name. But we knew that if we get our name, we're going to do this. We're going to raise the crucial funds for the South Asian Circle of Hopkinton, which is going towards the betterment of the community in Hopkinton. And obviously, the town gets its very own representation in the marathon because, since 1926, it's been happening from Hopkinton.

So this is the rare opportunity that a person from South Asia is actually representing a South Asian Circle and they get their name in the Boston Marathon.

Siegel: So super quickly before I let you go, you had a really long flight here. I got to ask, how are you feeling with jetlag before Monday's race?

Muhammad: The first two days, I did not realize, but third day, wow, it hit me so strong. And I was like, “What time is it? Is it morning or evening? Oh, my God. I need to fix the clock.” But three or four days in — I was in Maryland before reaching Boston — I feel good now, and that is amazing.

I want to say one thing about Massachusetts, and definitely about Boston and the other cities: This is the mecca of running. This is the best state in the world I've gone to where the runner's code is legit. Every runner smiles and says hi to the other runner. Every car stops ten meters away if a runner is coming. There's so much respect and so much honor for the people who run in Boston, who run in Massachusetts.