Burns On The Brink

Missouri Star Connor Burns Opens Senior Year

With Something To Prove

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A DyeStat Story By Dave Devine

Photos by Lily Dozier

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Don’t read too much into this. 

It’s not a big deal. Just an 11-year-old kid, running laps around a track.

A fifth grader, whose dad happens to be a college distance coach, doggedly trailing one of his dad’s top runners, senior Will Crocker. Experience and earnestness. Short legs churning after long legs. 

Both trying to slip under five-minutes and twenty-seconds for four laps.

For Crocker, a 4:01 miler, it’s barely a challenge. When his coach sent a text asking if he’d mind pacing the kid to a sub-5:20, he figured: No problem, let’s go run some 80’s. His legs are set to automatic.  

For Connor Burns, the fifth grader, it’s another matter.

He’s shooting for a personal best

The oldest of four boys, Connor is into all kinds of athletic endeavors — baseball and soccer and basketball; the occasional unsanctioned boxing match with his brothers — but he’s starting to love this sport that his parents, Marc and Alana Burns, excelled at through high school and college. The one they both starred in at Loyola University Chicago.

The one that he’s watched his dad coach here at the University of Missouri.

At this point, there aren’t many competitive opportunities for fifth graders, but Connor doesn’t take it too seriously anyway. No heavy training or early specialization. No pressure from his parents. They want him to come to this running thing on his own. He just happens to be naturally gifted, so every now and then they all head to the track to see if he can knock out a new personal best.

Today, he’s tucked in behind Crocker, trying to ride the slipstream behind the senior’s metronomic pace. Marc and Alana are trackside, cheering and calling out splits.

Let’s go run some 80s.

Whenever Crocker senses the youngster starting to lag, he glances back and urges him on. But a small gap starts to widen. An 80-second lap becomes an 81. The goal starts to slip away.

Battling home, Connor crosses in 5:21. Still a great time for an 11-year-old.

And they can always give it another shot in a week or two, right?

That’s what Crocker is thinking, and probably what Connor’s parents are thinking, too. Send another text, meet again at the empty track, take another swing at the PR. 

But it’s not what Connor is thinking.

Years later, he’ll remember this near-miss and admit: “I was heartbroken after that.”

So, maybe this is a big deal after all. Maybe it’s more than a minor meet-up at the track. What if all the things that will become important in Connor’s running life are here, in the aftermath of this time trial? The grit and determination. The strong-willed nature and the stubbornness. The focus and the fight. The tendency to internalize goals, to dial in and dig deep. 

The ability to spin heartbreak, however crushing, into fierce resolve.

What if that’s all here already, hints of who this kid will become, intimations around the edges — on this spring day in 2016?

But he’s still just 11 years old; it’s hard to say.

He’s still a baseball player. A basketball player. A kid who likes ping-pong and math and playing tag with his friends. He’s an occasional runner. A boy on the brink, caught somewhere between childhood and adolescence. This is just the beginning.

Who knows how it will unfold?

It’s been 58 years since a teenager in the United States entered his senior year of high school as a sub-four-minute miler.

This fall, there will be two.

On June 15 at the Brooks PR Invitational, then-junior Simeon Birnbaum from Rapid City, S.D., joined the list of sub-four high schoolers with a massive personal best of 3:59.51.

And 13 days before Birnbaum’s breakthrough, Connor Burns — now at Southern Boone High in Ashland, Mo. — trailed fellow prep Gary Martin’s hot pace at the HOKA Festival of Miles in St. Louis, Mo., to a U.S. junior class record and state all-time best of 3:58.83. The record Connor took down belonged to the only other 11th grader in U.S. prep history to break four minutes prior to his senior year — the legendary Jim Ryun. 

Ryun accomplished his feat in June 1964 as a 17-year-old sensation from Wichita East High (Kan.), running 3:59.0 at the Compton Invitational in California.

In surpassing Ryun, Connor realized a goal he’d harbored for years, but only began to trust was attainable after a series of eye-opening races in the winter of 2022.

He’d come a long way from those fifth-grade time trials on the Mizzou track.

Unlike Ryun, who frequently connects his inability to make the church baseball team and the junior high basketball squad to the advent of his running career, Connor continued to play traditional ball sports throughout middle school.

But gradually, distance running moved to the fore.

He gave up baseball after sixth grade. He continued with basketball through eighth grade, but was also competing in junior high cross country and track. And those spring time trials with Crocker became more serious, pushing from 5:20 to sub-five-minute efforts as high school approached. All the while, an obstinate streak that Marc and Alana first noticed in early childhood continued to shape Connor’s progress.

“We knew from a pretty young age that he was a strong-willed kid,” Marc says, chuckling. “At times, I looked at Alana, and was like, ‘This might be a total pain in our ass right now, but if he ends up being a good runner, this is going to be a big piece of why he’s so good.’”

As a ninth grader at Southern Boone, Connor had a solid cross country season before the outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020 scrapped his freshman track campaign. Limited again to a handful of time trials, he whittled his mile best down to 4:36.

Sophomore year, Connor showed clear improvement in cross country, climbing all the way to second at the Missouri Class 3 state meet.

“Then he started running some pretty good stuff outdoors,” Marc says, “like, a 9:14 3,200 with a 58- or 59-second last 400 at the state meet, getting second to the same kid who beat him in cross country.”

But the real eye-opener came less than a week after that sophomore state meet, when Connor ripped a 4:10 mile at the HOKA Festival of Miles. 

“I was like, ‘Okay, that’s pretty legit,’” Marc says, “but it still doesn’t quite predict running 3:58 as a junior.”

Marc imagined his son might drop from 4:10 to something in the 4:05 range by the end of 11th grade — “Which would be amazing,” he says — but in early February 2022 they took an unofficial visit to the University of Notre Dame and Connor ran in the second-fastest mile heat at the Meyo Invitational. 

He managed 4:07.90, but went out in 2:07 and closed in 2:00, with a 58-second final 400. Marc knew something had shifted.

“I was thinking, ‘Okay, if he can do that, he’s ready to run sub-4:04.”

A week later, Connor ran 4:02.96 at the Iowa State Classic.

“Then you’re like, ‘Holy crap, he’s at a whole other level.’”

The Katy Trail in central Missouri is the sort of meandering path that stretches, with promise, to the horizon.

The kind of place where anything feels possible. Where a runner might go out and create himself, simply by covering the landscape. A place to mark progress, lean into the miles, grind the gravel.

It stretches for 240 miles, mostly along the northern bank of the Missouri River. A former rail line, it was converted several decades ago to crushed limestone. And now it’s where Connor heads for a good portion of his training.

He accesses the trail about 15 minutes from his house, hopping on at Mile Marker 150.

“From there,” he says, “I can go for a while.”

On this particular evening, after conferring with his dad at the trailhead, he departs for a solo long run. Almost all of Connor’s runs are solo, although he does some training with his teammates at Southern Boone High and occasionally meets up with friends from around the state for workouts in Springfield or St. Louis. Unlike some other top prep runners, he hasn’t attended elite training camps or spent summer weeks at altitude in Boulder or Flagstaff.

“I wish I would be able to go to Boulder or something,” he says, “I think that would be really fun, but so far I do all of my training in Missouri.”

Because he lives, as he says, “out in the country,” there are really only two routes from the Burns’ home, both along gravel roads that skirt the edge of town. But Connor prefers it that way; he’d rather stick to dirt and gravel than run on paved roads.

Back at that house, Marc and Alana stay busy supporting, not only their oldest son’s burgeoning running career, but the activities and interests of brothers Brian (14), Sean (12) and Cris (9), too.

“It’s never quiet, that’s for sure,” Alana says. 

“A lot of breaking up fights,” Marc laughs.

Last year, after stints at Loyola Chicago, Wichita State, Bradley and Missouri, Marc stepped away from coaching to take a job with Boost Treadmills — in large part, to have more time with his family as the boys get older. He completely understands how growing up with a track coach for a father has exerted a certain gravitational pull on his sons, but he and Alana have been adamant that none of the boys feels pressured to run.

“We always want it to be their choice,” Alana says. “We never want to force them into running because it’s what we did. They need to figure that out on their own.”

While the younger Burns boys are still figuring it out, for Connor the choice is crystal clear. And it’s apparent that those days of hanging at the track and following his dad’s runners around has impacted his view of what’s achievable in the sport. He can easily rattle off the names of athletes his dad coached, but there’s one former Mizzou runner who stands out for her influence: 2018 grad and current Nike Bowerman pro, Karissa Schweizer.

“Connor was around through all of Karissa’s success,” Marc confirms, “and I think he was fascinated by how good she was. Nobody would have thought she could have done those things when she came to Mizzou. I haven’t thought about it until now, but that could have been the beginning of him seeing that anything is possible.”

Out on the Katy Trail, Connor spends time figuring out what, exactly, might be possible this year. It’s where he’s honing his fitness, elevating his mileage, and solidifying a sense of identity that runs counter to some people’s expectations.

“I know a lot of people see me as a miler,” he says, “but I’m definitely more of a distance guy.”

He loves the longer workouts, the sustained tempo pieces. Enjoys turning the screws in a race, ratcheting the pace and watching the pack wilt away.

“Honestly, I like being able to run away from people,” he says. “I don’t quite have that snappy final 100 (meters) yet, but mostly I just like the feeling of pulling away with a couple of laps to go.” 

When it comes to goals, Connor mostly holds those close. He’s not the type to scrawl projected times on Post-It notes or tape motivational quotes to his ceiling.

“They’re definitely always inside my head,” he says. 

But when he does finally divulge an objective, Alana notes, it’s because he knows it’s within reach.

“If you can actually get him to say a goal out loud,” she says, “you’re doing pretty well. He’s usually like, ‘I know what I’m going to do, but I’ll show you.’ When he says it, he almost always does it.”

She shares a story from his junior cross country season:

Connor told her he planned to go after the course record at Gans Creek, a layout Marc designed and built while coaching at Missouri that also serves as the state meet course. Alana reminded Connor that it was early in the season — just September — he shouldn’t feel any pressure; he could always go after the mark at the state meet.

But Connor was undeterred.

“He was just like, ‘Nah, I’m gonna do it today,’” Alana recalls. “And then he went out and did it. That’s typical Connor — usually when he says something, it’s because he knows he’s ready.”

She pauses, then adds:

“It was the same way with the mile.”

The seeds of Connor’s sub-four mile were sown in many places, but perhaps most poignantly on a windblown cross country course in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Connor was there to race the Eastbay (formerly Foot Locker) Midwest Regional, three weeks after securing his first state cross country title. He was gunning for a top-10 spot that would advance him to the Eastbay Championship race in San Diego, but was also still recovering from a bout of COVID-19 that sidelined him after the state meet. Despite a lingering cough, he assured his parents he felt ready to race.

“A mile in,” Marc recalls, “it was clear he wasn’t. We just pulled him off the course.”

Connor staggered to a stop and watched, grimly, as the rest of the field powered away.

“He was dead-set on going,” Marc says, “because that was a big goal of his all year, to go to Eastbay and also take a shot at the top guys in the country at RunningLane, and it just didn’t work out. So, we just shut him down and got him healthy and ready for that indoor season.”

It was a crushing disappointment for Connor.

Deprived of a chance to prove himself on the national stage, it only drove him harder as the calendar flipped to 2022. 

“All winter, I was thinking about it,” he says. “I hadn’t really been mentioned on the national scene, and rightfully so. But it definitely did stick with me. I remember after that race, I said to myself, ‘My one purpose in life this track season is to break four.”

After an indoor series that culminated in that 4:02 at Iowa State, it was clear the goal was a possibility, but the question remained: Where to take the shot outdoors?

In his own head, Connor already had the answer — the HOKA Festival of Miles.

A week before the meet, as he and his parents were mulling their plans, going back and forth over which heat to run, he insisted on entering the featured Thursday night men’s race. Because, he said, that’s where he planned to break four minutes.

It was typical Connor: If he says something, he’s ready.

“We were like, ‘Alright, then we’ll get you in there,’” Alana says.

From there, she and Marc observed a familiar narrowing as race day approached. 

“When he zeroes in on something,” she says, “he almost has tunnel vision, and there are no distractions.”

According to Connor, that comes from an ability to control his emotions. An awareness of when it’s time to ignore outside influences and drill down on the goal, until the only thing remaining is the thing he’s trying to achieve.

When he stepped to the line in St. Louis, he felt ready, but he wasn’t the only high schooler aiming for a sub-four.

Martin, the Archbishop Wood (Warminster, Pa.) senior who had circled the mark for months before dropping a stunning 3:57.98 at his league championship meet in mid-May, was also in the field. They had faced each other before, at New Balance Nationals Indoor back in March, where Gary won the mile in 4:02.34 and Connor was seventh, but they didn’t know each other particularly well.

“I talked to Connor briefly before the HOKA race,” Martin recalls, “literally going out to the line. We were putting our spikes on, I wished him luck, asked him how he was feeling…it was pre-race nerves for both of us, so I don’t think either of us had much to say. He ran a hell of a race, obviously, once we got out there.”

Martin, relying on his customary front-running style, ended up fourth behind three post-collegians, improving his PR slightly, to 3:57.89.

Connor, biding his time, moved up with a lap to go and kicked hard down the homestretch to cross right behind Martin in 3:58.83.

“I saw him finish right after me,” Martin says. “heard some people saying he’d gone sub-four, and I looked at the clock and saw 3:58. That was just a pretty crazy feeling, knowing that two high schoolers went sub-four in the same race, and he broke Jim Ryun’s junior class record.”

Bob Timmons, the high school and college coach of the runner whose record Connor claimed, has said that on the night Ryun broke four minutes in Compton, he made a simple notation in his training log, writing that he’d run 3:59.0 without any additional comments. “I don’t think he had any idea what he had just accomplished,” Timmons told the Los Angeles Times in 1991. “He was 17 and a phenom, but he was still just a tall, quiet and unassuming kid.”

Unassuming might be a good word for Ryun’s successor, too.

He’s neither garrulous nor arrogant when discussing his achievement.

“It was definitely cool,” Connor says, “not only going sub-four, but also getting the national junior class record.”

Mostly, he seems nonplussed by the attention he’s received. Perhaps even slightly embarrassed. It’s clear that he’s proud of what he’s done, just not particularly enthralled. Asked to ride in the lead car at his town’s annual Fourth of July parade, serving as grand marshal alongside Southern Boone’s state championship baseball team, he was grateful for the honor — happy to wave and throw candy to the gathered crowd — but chuckles uncomfortably when asked about it later.

“It was kind of cool...I guess.”   

Which hints at the wonderful, confounding dichotomy of being 17.

That tenuous balance between passion and detachment. Audacity and guardedness. Between being deeply invested and playing it cool.

The contention that something isn’t a big deal. But also…it is a big deal.

That familiar request: Please don’t make a whole thing out of this.

But also: This is the whole thing.

 

For as many laurels as the Burns family has accumulated in the world of running, there’s another athletic endeavor in which they’re arguably just as proficient:

Cornhole.

The popular backyard game, which involves tossing bean bags at an angled board with a hole near the end, is definitely a family affair.

Marc — by everyone’s account, the most serious of the six — is a member of the American Cornhole Organization (ACO) and the American Cornhole League (ACL). He won a world team title in Las Vegas in 2019. He’s partnered with Alana to podium at several tournaments, while the boys have paired up to record a string of impressive finishes over the years. 

This summer, Marc teamed with Connor to claim second place at the Cole County Fair in Jefferson City, and win a fundraiser event put on by the Southern Boone baseball team.

“Connor’s gotten really good,” Marc notes. “He holds his own on the other side of the board, does some real damage.”

Not surprisingly, Connor is more measured in his assessment.

“I’ve been kind of slacking recently,” he says. “But it is a big family thing, and I’m — well, I’m definitely not a slouch.”

With summer winding down, the bags are still flying at the Burns home, but thoughts are definitely turning to cross country.

Marc will be a volunteer assistant at Southern Boone this fall, supporting head coach Ron Smith by designing Connor’s workouts and developing training approaches to benefit the entire team.

“Coach Smith is awesome,” Marc says, “we have a great relationship.”

The plan is to race two or three hard efforts in early autumn, and then focus squarely on the post-season meets in November and December.

Just as he did after that time trial years ago, Connor will once again be trying to spin heartbreak into motivation. He already had unfinished business after his withdrawal from the Eastbay Regional last November, but a crash to the track in the 1,500-meter final at last June’s USATF U20 Championships has meant another stretch of time sifting through the debris of a season-ending setback.

“It’s really tough,” Marc says. “Falling in your last race of the year? It’s not bad when you have a chance to run again next week, but when it’s your last race and you’ve got to wait again until September…it’s tough to get over that.”

It also means that Connor, despite the attention for breaking four minutes as a junior, might still be underestimated as a harrier on the national scene.

“Some people are probably sleeping on him a little bit in cross country,” Marc says, “because they just don’t realize what he can do. He’s just a beast, aerobically.”

Connor acknowledges that while he might be under the radar this fall, he doesn’t expect that to be the case much longer. He’s had workouts indicating he’s fitter than he’s ever been at this point in a season.

“Honestly, I’d be a little surprised if I didn’t win cross country nationals this year,” he says, with as much modesty as you can possibly muster while making that kind of prediction. “There’s definitely something out there that I want to prove to myself.”

For Marc and Alana, it’s back to preaching patience. Restraint. Helping Connor manage the small things, so he can stay healthy and fit. And then waiting for that familiar tunnel vision to emerge as the big races approach. They, too, have heard the doubts about the Missouri miler’s abilities when it comes to longer races.

“I hear people saying, ‘Connor’s not that great of a cross country runner, is he?’” Marc notes with a laugh. “And it’s like, ‘Just give him a few months here. If he’s healthy… you’re going to find out.’”