I'll share a story of something that happened to me. 6 weeks before Ironman Louisville, I developed some kind of nerve damage in my shoulder that caused my shoulder blade not to track correctly. I'd get a ton of pain whenever I lifted my arm above shoulder level. That same week I also injured my achilles reaching high for something, which was initially diagnosed as achilles tendonitis, but later as an accessory soleus muscle that caused all kinds of problems.
Anyway, I couldn't really run, bike, or swim 6 weeks out from the race. So, trained by walking as much as I could and showed up to the race anyway. I got about 300 yards of normal freestyle swimming before my shoulder had enough. Made it about halfway swimming a one armed breaststroke until my ankle had enough doing frog kicks. Stopped swimming, thought it was ridiculous trying to do an Ironman with one good arm and leg, and looked for a rescue boat. Then realized if I got on the boat, I'd probably have to wait until the swim was completely over before they'd take me in, and that I could save time just by completing the swim. Went on to finish the race in 16 hours of non stop pain.
People love to puff up the training difficulty of Ironman as if you don't do 30+ hours or whatever of training per week that you won't make it, and it's false....not just in Ironman but other endurance events too. Focus on showing up to the race as healthy as possible, manage the injury, and show up with the attitude that you're going to make the best of the day and will go down fighting. Completing endurance events with injuries with thoughts of how impossible/stupid it is to even try, then coming out the other end successful will be more gratifying and do more for your mental toughness than any PB you'll ever set.
Anyway, I couldn't really run, bike, or swim 6 weeks out from the race. So, trained by walking as much as I could and showed up to the race anyway. I got about 300 yards of normal freestyle swimming before my shoulder had enough. Made it about halfway swimming a one armed breaststroke until my ankle had enough doing frog kicks. Stopped swimming, thought it was ridiculous trying to do an Ironman with one good arm and leg, and looked for a rescue boat. Then realized if I got on the boat, I'd probably have to wait until the swim was completely over before they'd take me in, and that I could save time just by completing the swim. Went on to finish the race in 16 hours of non stop pain.
People love to puff up the training difficulty of Ironman as if you don't do 30+ hours or whatever of training per week that you won't make it, and it's false....not just in Ironman but other endurance events too. Focus on showing up to the race as healthy as possible, manage the injury, and show up with the attitude that you're going to make the best of the day and will go down fighting. Completing endurance events with injuries with thoughts of how impossible/stupid it is to even try, then coming out the other end successful will be more gratifying and do more for your mental toughness than any PB you'll ever set.