Pig Trig

A friend of mine is training for the Flying Pig Half Marathon in May. (I'm training for a half, too, but decided not to do the Pig because of the crazy hills... I'm a wimp.)  He was telling me last night that he's trying to figure out at what incline to set his treadmill to help him prepare. And, since I was a math teacher, could I help him out?

(Those questions always make me nervous. What if I can't actually do the problem?  Then I look dumb.)

The section of the run that he's most worried about is from miles 5.5-ish to 8, which climbs about 280 feet.  Our question was how do we convert that to a percentage at which he can set his treadmill?

My friend and I sat and figured it out last night (after I discovered that a 45 degree angle is considered a 100% incline... which doesn't make sense to me, but whatever).

And what a perfect question to open with in today's precalc class!  Yes, they think I'm a geek for sitting and doing math with my friends, but after I convinced them that this was a legit problem that we were trying to figure out, most kids bought in.

(Want an answer?  Figure it out for yourself :) )


Comments

  1. Road grades are figured as a percent slope. 100% at 45 deg because rise/run is 1/1

    ReplyDelete

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