Pythagoras? Now, which elf was he?

Our treadmill broke this morning. Oh, you can still run on it, but it no longer inclines.

Now, if you’re sane, you’re probably wondering, “sooooo…?” Because, obviously, no one in their right mind would intentionally run uphill.

Well, don’t tell MLB, but I’m with you on this one. It’s hard enough to get through a treadmill workout on level, um, ground without pretending to run uphill, too. Plus, the treadmill has this fancy-schmancy video display that shows a guy running along, ostensibly a training partner, but he never even breaks a sweat on an incline. Talk about demoralizing.

But that’s neither here nor there. The point of this post is that I no longer remember any trigonometry, and I’m deeply conflicted about it.

See, when the treadmill’s incline feature decided to depart, it left a little reminder: the running surface is imperceptibly angled upward. The digital readout says it’s zero, but the statistics display also shows that we’re gaining about 60 feet in elevation for every mile run…a measurement that was confirmed by my heartrate after four miles this afternoon. (Actually, it was a relief to realize that I had been running uphill, rather than simply and abruptly losing the ability to metabolize oxygen, as I began to fear.)

Being the OCD type of person my friends think I am, I decided that I needed to know the exact angle of the incline with which I had been battling. I knew that such computation would involve minutiae such as angles, lengths and hypotenuses (hypotenii?). I even recalled a formula: the sum of the squares of the sides of a right triangle is equal to the square of the hypotenuse. Using a spare Excel spreadsheet I had laying around for just such emergencies, I was able to compute the hypotenuse for my treadmill-based triangle (251 feet increase in elevation for 4.16 miles covered). With that in hand, I realized that I had…nothing. I had no idea of what to do next.

Well, I didn’t even get that far without help. I once knew how to calculate by hand the square root of any number, but no longer. What I do know how to do is insert an Excel function to calculate the square root for me, which I think you’ll agree is one indicator of a civilized society.

I was stumped as to the final answer. So I did what any 21st century math-impaired person would do. I googled “trigonometry calculator” and found this site. It has a form into which you plug the measurements you know, and it computes the rest, using some obscure derivative of the Pythagorean Theorum, a mathematical formula that was devised by ancient sadists intent upon torturing high school juniors, if and when high school ever got invented. The site has a link that purports to show you the proof of the Pythagorean Theorum, but I didn’t click it. I don’t care. I no longer have room in my brain for things like this. I was proud that I knew that trigonometry could solve my problem, and I found the solution, and that was enough for me. (Yes, it has occured to me that the math behind the trigonometry calculator was actually programmed by indentured water buffalo, or worse yet, the guys who thought up the BCS bowl ranking system. Once again, I don’t care.)

It’s said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. In my case, high school trig trumps David Copperfield any day.

Oh, in case you’re wondering…it’s .65°.