Looks like we (read: San Francisco) are finally getting a whiff of that smoke from the wildfires up in northern California and Oregon. The air quality this afternoon was surprisingly bad. A blanket of smokiness seemingly wafted over us unannounced. It was the hottest day of the week, too. Those of us without air-conditioning at the home have a difficult choice tonight: open the windows to cool down rooms, or keep them close because air quality is not great. Which one would you prefer? A warm room, or a cool one with bad air?
Here’s what I am doing: keep the window open, and let the Coway air purifier do its thing. The machine is definitely more active than usual this evening.
Selfishly, I hope the air quality will improve by the time this Sunday arrives. That is when I will be running a 10K in the annual Giants Race. I can safely speak for all runners that we would prefer to run in good clean air. This reminds me of two years ago when a coworker was training for the Santa Rosa Marathon. It was all going well until wildfires erupted locally, creating challenging air conditions. While the race was not canceled, the coworker decided to skip the event. There’s no glory in it: who knows what sort of harm could materialize in the long term.
Obviously, my situation is not as drastic. Perhaps a bit of smokiness will add to the pleasant ambiance at the Embarcadero on a Sunday morning. I greatly enjoy running down that route and back to Oracle Park to compete the 10K distance. This year, due to enough people signing up for the event, they’ve re-extended the route all the way to Pier 39. Last year they made us loop back at the Ferry Building instead, necessitating two laps (instead of the single one when the turn is at Pier 39). That really threw me off my game last year, so no excuses this time.
Too bright.