If you’ve been following along with out Fit Friend posts every Friday you’ll notice this week is a little different. Over the coming months we’ve decided to change up our regular questions to better suit the current worldwide COVID-19 Pandemic.

First up for these new questions is Jay aka ‘The Burpee King’. Many of you will recognise Jay from Spartan courses all around the globe or as the guy who did over 10,000 in our 4 week burpee challenge. Jay is a true Spartan, completing races all over South East Asia and travelling as far as Greece for the Trifecta World Championships in Greece and the Ultra World Championships in Sweden. After planning to hit 16x Trifecta’s this year and having that goal derailed Jay has decided to take on as many virtual races as possible until the real race season comes back.

Name: Jayakumar Tharmalingam (Jay)
Age: 37
IG Handle: @jayboymacha

What is your day job?
I’m working at Dell in Sales for EMEA region.

What is your fitness background?
Played badminton and long distance runner

First OCR Race?
Viper Challenge 2013 in Sepang, Malaysia

How did you first get in to OCR?
Saw the advert in Facebook and decided to join without knowing how and what need to be done during the race, but I know it will be fun.

What keeps you coming back?
The challenges on the course, the community, the positive vibes and the feeling when you cross the line without penalties.

What's your favourite cheat day snack?
I don’t have any “cheat day” as what most of the people do. If I want to have “awesome food” I’ll have it and then just workout as normal.

What change have you made during COVID that you're going to keep?
The only thing changes in me during this COVID season is that I tend to do more burpees than I do before and do more live workout and support the fellow OCR families by joining their live session.

Have you set yourself any personal goals or challenges to replace racing currently?
Before this COVID season I’ve draft my races to achieve 16X Trifectas, so since most of the races has been postponed and cancelled around the world, I’m doing Spartan Virtual races during the weekend. Since this virtual race is out, I just do as much virtual races I can to stay focussed during the actual race.

How are you staying focused on training with all current events postponed?
It’s all in the mindset. Yes, it’s sad to see the races are being cancelled here and there, but training must go on. This is the time to push further than you can and more time to train.

What is your top tip for sticking to a schedule?
Plan ahead on the races and keep the plans to yourself to stay focus. I always draft my races schedule every time they announce it (at least 6months ahead). Keep a track on the events, plan for the races accordingly as per the goal.

Favourite item of kit and why?
If it is regarding the attire or I call it as “race uniforms” it will always be my black Nike shirt, grey Nike running shorts coz it’s like good “juju” to me. Shoes will be Reebok All Terrain 3.0 or Spartan RD Pro and high knee Spartan socks. No Glove…

Favourite nutrition product and why?
Oops… sorry I don’t take any... I used to take a couple of protein powder brands for testing purposes but, it’s just not for me :D

Favourite fitness book / app and why?

Book:
Obstacle Race Training by Margeret Schlachter and Hobie Call. To be honest I bought this book coz of the name Hobie Call (True OCR Legend). Then I found out the book is pretty amazing with some details on the obstacles and trainings.

Apps:
NIKE run coz it was the first app I used to record my outruns.

Do you have any words / advice for people struggling to stay motivated?
As I mention earlier it’s all in the mind set. Get up and stay focus on the goal. For example, whenever our mom says, “Don’t touch, it’s hot”. We will still try to touch it to see how hot it is, right? So, the same goes to your mindset. Push yourself then how you use to and you will be surprised to see the wonders you have make.

Any sponsors, brands or people you'd like to shout out too?
Well… I don’t have any sponsors now and never had one, but I’m shouting out my family (dad, mom, 2 younger sisters) who never stop to motivate me for races, my OCR families, my boss, my colleagues, and everybody who knows me… THANK YOU very much….

Thanks to Spartan Race Malaysia and Hutan Ration Power Food for having me as their ambassadors.