With wildfire smoke blanketing the region, outdoor enthusiasts wonder what to do

On Tuesday, Patty Jo Struve grabbed her bike, donned a buff and headed out on a 20-mile ride, despite the smoke.

“The buff thing is it’s helpful,” she said. “It’s not going to filter out everything but I can tell when I take it off, ‘I’m like wow it’s huge. It’s night and day.’ “

It was a calculated choice for Struve, 65, who has asthma and a heart condition. She knows exercising in the smoke is unhealthy.

On the other-hand, she’s training for a 24-hour mountain bike race and hates being cooped up.

“I really limited what I did (that day),” she said. “I was out for 2 hours. And then I’m in my house the rest of the time.”

That’s a calculation plenty of outdoor athletes and enthusiasts are having to make this summer. With unhealthy levels of smoke blanketing the Inland Northwest for much of the week those kinds of decisions are “a bit tricky,” said Dr. Darryl Potyk, chief for medical education at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Spokane and an outdoor enthusiast himself.

“As we all know, physical exercise helps us both mentally and physically, but now we have to weigh the dangers of inhaling smoke (carbon monoxide and particulates) and those of COVID,” he said in an email.

Penny Schwyn, an avid mountain biker and outdoor recreationist, has a stricter cut-off zone. She watches the AQI measurement like a hawk and if the air is unhealthy she basically stops all outdoor activities.

“The smoke is really damaging for your lungs and I don’t know if people know about that,” she said.

It’s a tough reality. In fact Schwyn and her husband have started writing-off the entire month of August.

“I wonder if we’re going to have to be like snow birds except going somewhere else for smoke,” she said. “It’s hard we get grumpy we get touchy.”

Wildfire smoke contains particles 1/20th the width of a strand of hair. Those particles are small enough to penetrate into the deepest recesses of our lungs and cause inflammation, he said.

To help guide when and where it’s safe to be outside, the Environmental Protection Agency has developed the Air Quality Index which ranks the severity of air pollution caused by different pollutants, including wildfire smoke.

“That inflammation can result in worsening breathing for those with underlying lung disease but can also cause new symptoms in people who have not otherwise had symptoms previously,” he said. “We don’t know much about the interplay between breathing this smoky air and the SARS-CoV-2 virus – but there is concern, but not a lot of evidence yet, that the inflammation caused by breathing in particulates may increase a predisposition to Covid infection, particularly as we face an increased prevalence of the delta variant.”

Which puts us all in a tricky spot. Go outside and risk inflaming your lungs and increasing (maybe) your susceptibility to contracting COVID-19. Stay inside and maybe be exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Personally, Potyk said he avoids heavy exercise outside in the smoke.

“For myself, an otherwise healthy 62 year old, it means I don’t want to exercise outside, and if I do, I don’t want to exert myself and start breathing hard/more deeply,” he said. “I’m OK walking outside for a short time, but I don’t recommend running or biking in this weather.”

Wearing a mask, whether exercising in a gym or in smokey air, is an option if the mask is of sufficient quality to filter out the small particles, he said, although personally he finds it “hard to do (and messy).”

Buffs do not filter that small of particles.

Struve is aware of all this and does adjust accordingly. She goes out for shorter duration rides or rides early in the morning, both good options for limiting smoke inhalation.

But at the end of the day, it’s a calculated risk, one she’s decided to take.

“I really believe if you take precautions and take some kind of face covering (it’s OK),” she said. “I’m pretty driven.”