Canadian Running – September-October 2019

By Dave Robertson

C

aroline Reid knows a lot about wildfire smoke. The

summer of 2018 was another record fire season

in B.C .’s interior. Her hometown of Golden, B.C. was

choked by a fierce, persistent haze all last August. A trail

runner and competitive skier, Reid spent her precious

summer training season navigating smoke forecasts and

air-quality reports to decide when it was safe to train

outdoors. For the most part, it wasn’t.

“It was really bad and we kept saying...‘Maybe we

should just leave,’ and by the time we decided to leave,

it was kind of smoky across the province, and we didn’t

have anywhere to go,” Reid says.

Reid is particularly well-qualified to understand the

health risks of what’s now called “smoke season” in

western Canada. A mechanical engineer, she used to

manage heating and ventilation systems in hospitals

across the B.C. interior. She is keenly aware of air quality

and makes a point to share what she knows with other

trail runners.

Reid explains that wildfire smoke and other forms

of air pollution contain concentrations of particulate

matter called PM2 .5 , harmful particles that are less than

2 .5 micrometres in diameter. Unlike larger PM10, which

is captured by mucus and fine hairs in our respiratory

systems, it enters the deepest parts of our lungs and is

absorbed into our bloodstream. Known to cause short-

and long-term health issues, PM2 .5 is exponentially

more harmful to runners, who breathe 10 to 30 times the

amount of air during exercise.

Eyeballing air quality issues is a risky proposition

because PM2 .5 is hard to see and smell. On a trip to

Ye l lo wk n i f e , n.w.t., I stepped off the plane into a clear

day with just a touch of smoky haze. It looked fine,

Running in

Wildfire Season

Western Canada’s increasing number

of summer wildfires are alarming

in and of themselves, but it’s what

you can’t see that runners need to

prepare for the most

so I went for a training run. When

I checked Environment Canada’s Air

Quality Health Index (aqhi) after-

wards, it was at 7 out of 10 – the point at

which healthy people should consider

postponing strenuous outdoor activity.

Reid is more careful. In addition

to reports from the aqhi, she uses

forecasts from BlueSky Canada, an

experimental online map that predicts

ground-level concentrations of PM2.5.

She says, “If the PM2 .5 gets over 100,

I start to really change my habits – not

training, training indoors, or travel-

ling to train.”

Travis Schiller-Brown is Reid’s skiing

and running coach, and he manages

training programs for more than 40

endurance athletes scattered across

British Columbia and Alberta. “We

had [only] one athlete who didn’t get

smoke,” Schiller-Brown says about

2018’s smoke season. He spent the

summer watching smoke forecasts and

juggling his clients’ programs so that

they could train safely.

He flinches when he sees trail

runners using buffs or bandannas on

smoky days and believes they need to

be more deliberate about strategies that

balance their personal tolerances for

health risk with their need to exercise.

For Reid, who competes internation-

ally with the Canadian National Ski

Mountaineering Team, wildfire smoke

is more than just an inconvenience –

she considers it a serious threat to her

long-term health, and changes or stops

her training program to protect herself.

“It’s great to be competitive now while

I’m young...to keep training, although

maybe I shouldn’t but I don’t want to be

very ill when I’m older because of the

decisions I made now. No athlete wants

to work hard all season to discover that

their ‘A’ race is compromised, but the

question you have to ask is: ‘am I going

to have to live with the effects of this

all my life?’”

Schiller-Brown’s Guidelines

for Running During

Wildfire Season

Exercise at a recreation facility

Schiller-Brown says most large, modern recreation

facilities have HVAC systems designed to filter out

harmful particles, and they offer the safest place

to exercise. If you work in an office tower, another

alternative may be training in a stairwell.

Use air filtration systems at home

Even if you can’t smell smoke inside your home,

PM2.5 may still be getting in. Use a high-quality

air filtration unit with a HEPA filter in the room

you intend to exercise. “I leave a HEPA filter

running in my house all the time when the levels

get elevated,” Reid says.

Try using a respirator

Schiller-Brown knows trail runners who run

with industrial respirators but Reid finds them

hot and uncomfortable. If you try one, choose a

silicone mask to ensure a good seal and use N95

or P100 filters. At over $200, the new R-PUR

pollution masks from France are expensive, but

designed specifically for runners and cyclists.

Pick your smoke windows or

take a road trip

Schiller-Brown recognizes that indoor exercise

isn’t enough to satisfy everyone. He says, “For

mental health, [some athletes] need to get out

and run. They need to go to the mountains, they

need to do stuff.” If you need time outside, use

smoke forecasts from Bluesky Canada and the

AHQI reports from Environment Canada to plan

when to run safely. Conditions may be safer an

hour or two from where you live, so it may be

worth a road trip.

Take a break

If you have health concerns, low tolerance for

risk or are uncertain about environmental

conditions, the safest and simplest option may

be to take a break.

Dave Robertson is a trail runner and writer

based in western Canada.

18 Canadian Running September & October 2019, Volume 12, Issue 6

off the beaten path