Getting ready for my first DNF race

Tomorrow is my first half iron race of this season and I know going into it that I'll end up with my first ever DNF. How do I know? Well my ankle has been probed and checked multiple times. I had MRI done about 2 weeks ago and then few days later I saw specialist who made few remarks - one word he repeated several times looking at my MRI was 'IMPRESSIVE' which is not a very good sign when doctor looks at the pictures of your bones, ligaments and soft tissue.

That consultation was pretty scary for me as I really like to run. During the discussion with the doctor I learned about lose piece of bone in my heel (which is not a problem), few ligament tears around my ankle (which is likely caused by few ankle sprains and I should not worry about it much) and last which is more scary is swollen bone right under my ankle. That is the cause of all the pain I have been going through during and post runs. I have that bone slightly enlarged on my both feet which is genetical and should not cause issues. But the one on my right leg has swollen which causes some extra rubbing on the ligaments in that area and running is what irritates it. So I have been off running for over 4 weeks now and I have 4 more to go. Let me qualify that - I was not running on the roads, treadmill or anywhere else but the deep pool. I started to actually enjoy (if you can imagine that) my short runs in the pool - especially when Craig has me do some harder intervals. I get a lot of stares and few people wonder whether I'm trying to swim or what the heck I do. I got a lot of stares in Orlando when I went to the 50m pool and ran up and down the 50m lane while people in other lanes were swimming. Long explaining to do and they understood once I started swimming my cooldown 200 meters ;-).

So my ankle is the reason why I will be bailing after the bike tomorrow. I will much rather enjoy more years of triathlon than having one more race and then possibly surgery. Good thing in all this is that I can still swim and bike so we have been doing some more serious work in the pool and on the bike. We will see tomorrow how that is working out. I expect the swim to be pretty good and on the bike I'll be somewhat limited as I should not be standing up even on the hills so I'll need to grind up those two or three hills we have on the course.

Good luck to all my EnMu peers racing this weekend and also to all of you jumping into races over this weekend.