Conor worked in West Coast’s sports science team in 2007 as part of an ongoing program with the University of Limerick in Ireland.
“As part of my undergraduate sport science degree, we had to undergo a nine-month prac period in our third year,” Conor said.
“I was pretty keen to go abroad for mine and picked Australia as my preferred location.
“I knew they were at the forefront of sport science, and the idea of beaches, sunshine and Alf Stewart helped in the decision.”
Despite knowing little about AFL before his arrival, Conor quickly developed a strong connection with the West Coast Eagles and his new hometown of Perth.
“One of my favourite memories was the unfurling of the premiership flag at Subiaco before the first home game of the season against Collingwood in 2007,” Conor recalled.
“Crossing the field just before the players came out in front of 40,000 people was a very surreal experience. It was my first Australian football game and there was an unbelievable atmosphere.”
Although having now left Western Australia, Conor is still committed to raising money for the local charity by undertaking the gruelling 250km marathon.
Competitors will need to complete the race in one week, while carrying a backpack of supplies and enduring temperatures of up to 40 degrees during the day and near freezing at night.
“Training for the event got underway about a year ago as I had never really done any running for the sake of running before, so I had to build up my base pretty much from scratch,” Conor explained.
“In the lead-up, I was running around 100km over four days with the full pack to get used to running over consecutive days.
“In the weeks before I fly out, I'm winding down the running distance a bit to keep fresh and just doing a lot more gym work as well as some Bikram yoga and going to the sauna to try get some bit of familiarity with heat.”
To support Conor and donate to Cancer Council WA, click here.
To find out more about the ultramarathon across the Atacama Desert in Chile, click here.
