At six years old, while most children were at school, a chicken-pox-riddled Connor sat in front of the TV and watched almost the entire Beijing Olympics. From that point, he was hooked.

Connor’s passion for running started early and has only grown over time. Inspired by the Kenyan runners he read about, Connor would run to and from school (even though his two younger brothers were driving there at the same time). Before he had a phone or a computer, he would stand in front of the TV with a small digital camera and film races so that he could rewatch them over and over again.

This obsession quickly translated into his own success. Connor won the under-18s Australian half-marathon title when he was 15, picked up open race titles as a junior, and competed at the state level during and after school.

However, it would be his overzealous approach that would prove his undoing. Battling numerous injuries in his late teens and early twenties, Connor was forced to reevaluate his approach to running and mature in his training. He became a student of the sport, moving to Brisbane to study at the University of Queensland before doing his Masters in Sports Science at Deakin University.

Connor has also trained athletes at the high school level and is a Gold Certified Australian Athletics Coach. Outside of this, he is an avid spectator of the sport and has written about running on many different platforms – including pretty much everything you can find on Onus Athletics.