If you click on “View Details” below you’ll see the elevation profile. The middle of the route is basically straight up, then straight done. A good way to start the day.

The best one I’ve found so far is www.bikemap.net. Below is an example of my last ride. Compare this to the Google Map version a couple of posts down. One cool feature is the km/mile markers and the elevation chart.

View 70 km Bike Ride in a larger map

I had mapped out a new course and didn’t know that a considerable portion of Firdale Rd was actually gravel. We decided to take our chances instead of turning around and, amazingly, made it through without any flats (instead, my front tire went “psssssh” later on, as we were heading south on OR-219 from Hillsboro).

The pace was a little slower than I would have liked, my flat tire cost a few minutes, and Sven bonking at the end forced us to stop for some Snickers bar and Gatorade. But all-in-all a decent ride.

View 42-Miler in a larger map

Hagg Lake is not known for its sandy beaches. As the water recedes, it reveals some sort of clay/mud mixture along the shore. This time of year the water is still a bit to high, but we found a spot that the kids liked well enough. It was also a good place to start a swim.

As I settled down, things improved, but it’s still a completely different experience from pool swimming and I’m nowhere near where I need to be to put in a decent swim time during a race. So, the struggles in the water continues. The good news that is I’m ahead of where I was last year and there’s still time to work on it.

After the swim, we biked a lap around the lake to simulate the race and this is what I’m really excited about. This is a recovery week for both Sven and me, so we went at an easy pace. When I got home and analyzed the data (see picture below), I learned that I was only 7 sec/km slower than my race pace last year. This almost seems too good to be true, because this was a light-medium efford ride and I feel there is lots of room to improve on the bike still. This bodes well for Hagg Lake 2008, which is my A priority race.

After the bike we did a quick 2 km-run. That’s approximately how long it took me to get my running legs going during last year’s race. The transition from a hard bike ride to a hard run is always tough (especially when you start the run with a tough hill), but my legs feel strong this year and I expect to place high in the run.

Before the Vancouver race, I played around with Google Earth and mapped out the bike course in Stanley Park to get an idea of the terrain. I produced a couple of jpeg-versions using the “Save Image” function. Both are stored in my Picasa Web Album.

The first one is at a zoom level that shows the whole course. Click here to see this version. For a more detailed view, click here for the large version. This is a composition of four closeups that I merged.

Note that there is a zoom button inside the album that allows you to zoom in to get the full resolution. Maybe in ten years we’ll have Google Earth in HD, which would allow us to spot the rough pavement, including the enormous pot hole to the north…

Some clarifications might be in order: I’ve marked my checkpoints with yellow push pins. Each one shows the elevation above sea level (as per Google Earth). Between each checkpoint is an “i” showing the distance between each point as well as the grade. A green path indicates negative grade (downhill) and red is uphill.

Finally, anyone with Google Earth who’s interested in the real deal, can download the kmz-file here: www.fxtn.net/misc/vancouver.kmz.