Back in December of 2007, now women’s individual time trial gold medalist, Kristin Armstrong took a trip to Beijing to do a test run on the time trial course.  She rode the 15 mile course while using her husbands GPS device (doesn’t say which one) to log the elevation profile of the ride.

When she got home to Boise, Idaho, she used Google Earth to trace the entire course with the GPS coordinates she logged in Beijing.  She was then able to design a training schedule locally that best matched the elevations of the Olympic course.  Not only that, but she was able to use the satellite views of Google Earth to get a birds eye view of the course and commit it all to memory.

Overall, a very good way to use multiple technologies that many of us have access to already.

Full Article [Google Lat Long Blog]