Connor is an exercise physiologist, endurance sports coach, and raced in the professional cycling peloton for over 20 years.
Over the past two decades, Coach Connor has been fortunate to experience all sides of the cycling, endurance, and nutrition/health world. From his own experience racing the professional circuit, managing teams, coaching athletes of all levels, and writing for cycling and nutrition magazines, he brings a variety of knowledge and experience to Fast Talk Labs.
Connor raced in the pro peloton for nearly 20 years, getting on the podium at some of the largest races in North America. He started his coaching career working with the National Development program at Pacific Sport in Canada. From there he coached the Colorado State University Cycling team to number two in the country and worked with several semi-pro and amateur teams throughout Canada and the U.S.
From 2011 to 2020, he wrote the monthly training articles for VeloNews magazine. This is also where he first became the co-host of the popular training podcast Fast Talk.
From 2012-2014, Connor managed one of the top-ranked amateur teams in America, Team Rio Grande. He is an alumni of the 14-year program which includes several top finishers at Gran Tour events.
Connor’s master’s thesis advisor was Dr. Loren Cordain, the originator of the popular Paleo Diet. Connor has been the CEO of The Paleo Diet since 2018.
He founded Fast Talk Laboratories, LLC in 2019 where he continues the podcast and focuses on producing information on endurance sports training from top coaches, physiologists and professional athletes from around the world.
In this week’s episode, our hosts talk about the best work to do leading into the race season, getting meditative during intervals, and preparing for an epic event.
We know we need carbs for training and racing, but what impact do they have on our health? We discuss the pros and cons with one of the world’s leading sports nutrition experts.
So you want to give the polarized training approach a go? Here’s how to map out your week using the 80/20 training model.
You might have heard of polarized training, but do you know how to implement it in your training? We’re here to help you get started.
Former XTERRA world champion and coach Melanie McQuaid talks with us about the pros and cons of top athletes becoming coaches.
In this week’s show, we talk about how we deal with the stress of competition, whether threshold intervals are old news, and the mental side of dealing with health setbacks.
We review some of the key findings in recent research on junior athlete development.
We turn to the latest research to sort out fact from fiction when it comes to young athletes competing in endurance sports.
Dr. Michael Crawley and Andy Kirkland join us to talk about what they’ve learned working and training with top Ethiopian runners.
We max out on metaphors in this week’s Fast Talk podcast as we talk about some of the key principles behind training, recovery, and fueling.
Elite cycling coach Dr. Iñigo San Millán explores the goals of training during the early season, base training months and how to best execute that training.
In this special Nerd Lab episode, we focus on three recent studies published by Dr. Bent Ronnestad that are all focused on improving time at VO2max.
Time at VO2max is driving the recent research on what makes the most effective intervals, but is it a good metric to use? We find out on this week’s Fast Talk podcast.
We get asked a lot of great—and nerdy—questions via our Fast Talk Labs Forum. Every month we’ll now be taking the best questions and publishing our answers. This month, our in-house physiologist Rob Pickels tackles the topics of altitude training and the impact of body composition on hypothermia.
We all need goals to help us stay on track, but what’s the secret to effective goal setting? Two top coaches share their secrets.
Encouraging your athletes to build self-awareness can bring a myriad of benefits, some more obvious than others.
Don’t make the mistake of doing all your base season riding at a low intensity. Spice things up with this HIIT workout.
Understanding your sources of motivation can be key to achieving your athletic potential, yet it’s a topic that can also be surprisingly complex. We talk with mental performance expert Sonya Looney on how to find your motivation.