In 2011 in Frankfurt, he was on the course for the slot, but a stomach distress KO him in the second part of the marathon. The year after he had a bike accident in early June during a half-Ironman just few weeks before Frankfurt, which was still his race target to qualify for Hawaii. After a quick recovery from that accident (shoulder and hip injury), in August of the same year he clocked his fastest IM up to date: Kalmar, Sweden, in 9 hours and 41 minutes (22nd of 331 in AG M40).
Yet, after the lows come the ups, and 2013 meant resurrection: Schön finally qualified for Hawaii by clocking a 10:06 at IM South Africa in April (by training only a few months on his rollers and a few weeks on the road in the US) and then raced in Kona for the first time in 10 hours and 38 minutes.
“What is outstanding is that my average training time for all the qualifications went down over the years (12h per week),” he adds, “and that shows the efficiency of the training with INSCYD’s methodology.” His second qualification for Kona came in November 2016 (Florida, 9:59) – which was followed by 11:20 at the 2017’s edition of the WC – a very hot edition of the race.
“My running speed is a bit stagnating at the moment. I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older, but I can definitely see the improvements over the years. When I started my threshold running speed was 4:14 per minutes and then got quicker to 3:35. So even as I got older I saw I improved,” he says.
Although he already achieved more than what the majority of triathletes could achieve in their entire careers, his hunger for more remains.
“Last year I did my first Race Across America in a team of eight and maybe next goal is to do it in a team of four in 2019 or 2020. But I’ll definitely try to qualify for Kona for the third time and I’ll be at the starting line in November.”
