After finishing fourth at the Ironman Florida competition in November 2023, Sasha Burton only had a few seconds to decide whether or not she would put her future plans on hold to go to the World Championship in Nice, France. She never expected to even be given the opportunity to make the decision, let alone be forced into such a hasty judgment.
With her new job at FEMA in Mississippi expecting her to start in just a few months, Burton’s choice came down to two things: a career or a dream. She chose the dream.
It was the fulfillment of a generational ambition spawned by her mother, Kristine Burton, who had wanted to compete in her own Ironman competition back when Sasha was a child.
“She had started training for one when I was younger, but then life happened, so she didn’t get the chance to actually participate,” Burton recalls.
Burton remembers watching her mother train and listening to her stories and lessons about what it took to get to the top of her game. Throughout her whole life, from her education at Harriton High School to graduating from the University of Pittsburgh, Burton carried a fire with her.
“So when I graduated to college, I was like, ‘Well, now what?'” she shares. “My parents encouraged me to take some time to do something that I’ve always wanted to do and then figure out what I wanted to do career-wise. So I was like, ‘Why not, sure, I’ll do an Ironman.'”
An Ironman consists of a full marathon, a 112-mile bike ride and a 2.4-mile swim, testing the very limits of human endurance.
To prepare, Burton needed to become a master of not just one discipline, but three. With her ever-supportive parents backing her and ample time to train, she whipped herself into shape. She hired an online training team and learned to swim and run like the pros, but biking was the hardest to master. Learning to clip in (an advanced biking technique) her shoes while riding became a source of constant frustration.
“That was super intimidating for me. I fell probably like a billion times in the worst places too, like in intersections,” she admits.
Her sports-filled childhood spent playing tennis and basketball undoubtedly helped with coordination, but nothing could have prepared her for the limits she would have to push her body. She ran a marathon for the first time when she was just a 16-year-old cross-country athlete in high school, but running after biking 112 miles is a different beast entirely.
After more than a year of prep, Burton got her Ironman baptism at the Atlantic City 70.3 in September 2023, a half-Ironman which she finished in just over six hours. She faced the real test just a few months later in the form of the Ironman Florida.
When she crossed the finish line a little over 13 hours after she left the starting line, she was exhausted but alive. She completed the race in fourth place for her 18- to 24-year-old age group, just a few places shy of qualifying.
The next day, she strolled over to the award ceremony to pick up her plaque when she learned the news: one of the higher-finishing competitors declined her World Championship invitation, so the slot rolled down to Burton.
“I didn’t think I would qualify because there’s only two or three spots per group. So then when I found out that I qualified, I had no idea what to do because you have to decide right then and there or else it goes [to the next finisher],” she explains.
Her job at FEMA would begin in less than three months. It was time to make the split-second decision to pursue her new position or spend the next nine months training. After years at UPitt studying environmental science, she knew her career could wait a little longer.
“I was trying to come up with a pros and cons list in my head, but I came up so empty. It was mostly just a gut feeling. I really didn’t have time to think about it anymore,” she shares. “The sport taught me a lot about my confidence and what I’m capable of, [so] I felt like I owed it to the sport to keep going and try. It’s kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
More than a decade after putting her own dream to the side, Kristine Burton will be joining her daughter in Nice this September to watch her compete against the best of the best in the upper echelon of the sport. And, in perfect timing, Kristine’s sporting career might not be done yet either.
For the dutiful parent watching from the sidelines these last years, Burton is working to get her mother back into shape to complete the goal she once aspired to achieve so long ago. In July 2025, they’ll compete together at Ironman Lake Placid in New York.
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