Washington Guidance for AQI Checks, Indoor Activity, and Outdoor Event Decisions
An outdoor run involves more than choosing a route and a pace. When smoke is part of the picture, include an air-quality check and an alternative plan. Washington State Department of Health guidance addresses both individual activity and public outdoor events. Understanding those two decisions helps you read an AQI number, consider an indoor option, and interpret an organizer's announcement without treating a race going ahead as personal advice to run.
In its guidance on smoke and physical activity, Washington DOH explains that exercise increases air intake, so people breathe in more pollution when air quality is bad. During smoke events, the department recommends trying to exercise indoors. For outdoor activity, it advises limiting both the amount of time and the intensity.
DOH also advises everyone to watch for symptoms and adjust activity as needed. It says people with asthma or other lung diseases should follow their health care provider's advice or an asthma action plan, if they have one. These recommendations provide a reason to make the day's plan flexible: a scheduled distance or a group meeting time should leave room for a different activity or postponement.
The departments' outdoor event guidance describes fine particles, or PM2.5, as the most useful measurement of smoke levels. These particles are less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, and their concentrations are reported through six AQI health hazard levels. Read the category as well as the number. Washington DOH's individual activity guidance distinguishes these levels:
Use the department's individual guidance alongside its advice to pay attention to symptoms. A public event decision and your own activity decision answer different questions.
Washington DOH recommends trying to exercise indoors during smoke events, and keeping activities light if indoor air is bad. That second point matters when considering an alternative: the recommendation includes the condition of the indoor air, rather than treating every indoor setting as equally suitable.
Think through the alternative before leaving for the run. Decide whether indoor activity is available, whether the planned session can be postponed, and how you will tell anyone expecting to meet you. If you choose an indoor option, use DOH's guidance about indoor air and activity level when considering what to do. The aim of this planning step is to leave yourself a practical choice, without needing to improvise at a trailhead.
Keep the training log simple: record the activity you actually did and the reason for changing plans. Avoid making a missed outdoor session a deadline that forces the next decision.
The Washington Departments of Health and Ecology's May 2026 outdoor event guidance summary uses forecasted 24-hour or NowCast PM2.5 levels. At AQI 151 or higher, it recommends considering cancellation of outdoor public events and activities. At AQI 201 or higher, in the Very Unhealthy category or worse, it recommends canceling them.
Those thresholds describe the departments' guidance. For a particular race, read the organizer's announcement for the actual event decision and any changes to the arrangements. Keep your individual activity assessment separate. The guidance to limit activity for sensitive people begins below the threshold for considering public event cancellation, so the absence of a cancellation announcement does not settle every runner's decision.
The event guidance identifies the WA Smoke Blog, EPA's AirNow App, and Ecology's Air Quality Map as places to find AQI values from agency monitors, with values provided hourly. Check the location and the time attached to the reading, and distinguish a current value from the forecasted or NowCast information used in event guidance.
Before traveling, review conditions for the outing and any event notice, then choose among the available plans using DOH's recommendations. For race planning across the seasons, the Pacific Northwest race calendar provides the broader context; keep an air-quality check as its own part of deciding what the day will involve.