"The speed of eating slows down," Burns said. "It's an exponential drop-off of speed.
The time it took me to eat the first half of the pizza, the second half took me twice as long."
The competitive eaters will face off at 12:30 p. m.
ET on Saturday, with the event broadcast nationally on ABC and ESPN2.
"I've been trying to figure out pacing," Burns said. "Ten minutes (at Nathan's), it's kind of a marathon but it's still sort of sprint-ish.
If I try to go at a slower pace to leave room at the end, it never works."
Burns previously placed third in a banana eating contest and sixth in a strawberry shortcake competition.
"The biggest one was a 10-pound ice cream sundae – every flavor the shop had," Burns said. "That one was scary.
It was made for a team of two and no team had finished it."
The 34-year-old musician and grocery clerk will join the rest of the field on the traditional transport to the Coney Island venue.
"I went and tried to do it solo," Burns said. "I think I'm the only person who finished it.
That was one of the hardest ones to recover from because my stomach was so cold. It almost went numb from the cold."
To build physical capacity, Burns continues using inexpensive vegetables during his training cycles.
"The biggest thing that helps competitive eaters is having a large stomach capacity – the larger your capacity, the more you can eat without feeling full," Burns said.
"You can get to a higher number without your brain telling you to stop."
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The final roster of competitors will gather at the Coney Island stage on Saturday afternoon.
