Over the last week, I've gotten several emails to the effect of "Wow, great job at Ironman Arizona! You crushed it and you're going to Kona!" Yes! Yes! Tell me more! Unfortunately, there's a back story here.
See, there are three guys by the name Shawn Burke currently doing Ironman.
That's results for three different people there. Two of us did Ironman Canada last year. All of us are getting faster. One of us has his ticket punched for Kona. One of us has the domain name shawnburke.com, and that's the only one I know.
Ironman turns out to be a small world, but even smaller in this case. I now realized why I've gotten very odd responses to some emails that I've sent - a few people happen to know the one other Shawn Burke's and confuse me with him. It's all so clear to me know.
Anyway, back to last week. As you can see from the top result up there, Shawn Burke laid down a smokin' 10:15 on a hot, windy day in Tempe, which was good enough for a Kona slot in M40-44. I looked closer at the results and he had a major breakthrough on the run - going close to 30 minutes faster than the other results I've seen for him. That's good work and good news. So you're saying there's a chance...?
Which puts my results into the middle slot - ahead of an improving Shawn Burke (Brookings, OR - 11:44 @ IMC last year), and behind an also-improving Shawn Burke (Atlantic Beach, FL - see above).
There are a lot of people doing Ironman. There's more and more each year, and they're getting faster and faster. Now, I have a very simple goal. To be The Fastest Shawn Burke. It's a tall order.
Ironman Coeur d'Alene is 9 weeks away.