Emma-Kate Lidbury: A warm welcome to the USA!

Greetings from a hot and sweaty Miami where it’s a toasty 33C and the humidity is a sweltering 95%. I’m out here for two weeks training and acclimatisation prior to the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Las Vegas on September 11.

There’s nothing like a warm welcome, so a few days after arriving I raced the Miami Speed Triathlon, an Olympic distance race held at the Homestead Miami Speedway. It was perfect Vegas preparation as the temperature was through the roof and the run course involved two laps around the speedway track where there was no hiding from the sun. Hot stuff? You bet!

This was the first time I’d raced since 70.3 UK in Wimbleball so I was keen to get the competitive juices flowing once more and, in my opinion, there’s simply no better preparation for racing than racing. Once that gun goes (and the mosquitos had stopped eating us alive on the start line), I find I can switch to race mode in a way which isn’t always so easy to do in training. The fast, flat bike course was a great opportunity to get my Focus Izalco Chrono TT bike fired up and it was also time to christen my new Fast Forward race wheels (huge thanks to Blair @ Paligap) and Lazer Tardiz TT lid (thank you Chris + Lando). As expected, the run course was not dissimilar to stuffing your head (and entire body) into a roasting hot oven, yet I was surprised at how well my body seemed to cope with it. With temperatures reguarly reaching 40C in Vegas at the moment, though, I’m going to need to be ready for a proper scorcher of a race. And I’m not just talking about the weather!

I’m very fortunate to know some terrific people here in Miami and am staying with two great friends, Ian & Vera, who have made me feel right at home from day one. The 25m pool they have in the back garden has meant there’s no excuses for not getting lots of swim training done. It’s a triathlete’s heaven!

I’m off to Vegas early next week so if I’m not back on the blog before then I’ll see you all on the other side. For more regular updates you can follow me on Twitter @eklidbury. They say what goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas, but hey, I might share a few race tales in my next blog…

Until then readers, happy training & racing!

EK