This story is jointly published by nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune to elevate diverse perspectives in local media through student journalism.
Nearly every day during the fall semester, collegiate runners tightened their laces for morning runs in the shadow of the mountains that span the Wasatch Front. As the Salt Lake valley’s inversions bring thick smog, some college athletes said they have been forced to train indoors or breathe in toxic air that threatens their respiratory health.
Ty Davis, a track and cross-country runner for Weber State University, said the unpredictable air quality has become a regular topic of training discussion.
“Almost every day before our runs, our coaches and even some of my teammates … talk about the air quality and decide if we are going to — or if we should — move our practice indoors,” Davis said. “It has become a normal thing to take some kind of precaution with the air quality.”
For Davis and other Utah residents, the state’s natural beauty is often overshadowed by the Great Salt Lake’s shrinking footprint, stirring up dust that adds to the Wasatch Front’s worsening air quality.
Utah’s deteriorating air quality, exacerbated by the drying lake, poses risks to the respiratory health of collegiate track and cross-country athletes. Researchers and medical experts warn that exposure to fine particulate matter and harmful pollutants can hinder lung function and long-term endurance. As the lakebed continues to expose more dust that’s laden with arsenic and metals, the health stakes rise, raising questions and concern from collegiate athletes about the future of outdoor running in the region.
(Kurt Ward) Ty Davis leads his Weber State University teammates in a cross-country rase at the Riverside Golf Course in Pocatello, Idaho.
An invisible enemy
For collegiate track and cross-country teams in Utah, these challenges have turned air quality into a year-round consideration. Coaches and athletes must balance the need to build endurance and strength with the realities of fluctuating air pollution levels, sometimes moving to indoor facilities or scheduling practices during times of lower pollution. However, these adaptations can only go so far, leaving many athletes to face the cumulative effects of training in compromised environments.
“There are definitely days when I notice the smog and air quality, especially since we run on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail,” Davis said of the path from North Salt Lake to Parleys Canyon. Davis is in the engineering program at Weber State, he said, so “I am also aware of the arsenic and other particles from the Great Salt Lake.”
Sprinter Nick Pembroke said he has trained from the green hills near Utah State University in Logan to the red rocks of Cedar City — and has noticed the air quality in northern Utah sends him indoors to train more frequently. Pembroke, a senior at Southern Utah University, also attended USU for several semesters, and said the air quality in Cache and Salt Lake counties seems to be worse than what he experienced in Iron County.
“I definitely am able to tell the difference on how it affects my breathing,” he said. “If it’s bad, … then I notice my lungs feel heavy, and I don’t do as many reps because I tire quicker.”
Some days, Pembroke said, he’ll avoid going outside when Salt Lake air quality alerts register in the orange or red zone.
Katarzyna “Kasia” Nowakowska, a sophomore runner for the University of Utah, said air quality issues in the Salt Lake Valley are more noticeable than in Poland, where she grew up.
“I don’t suffer from any respiratory issues and never had to deal with air quality in my hometown, [where] it is easier to breathe,” she said. “There are days that I can see the air full of pollution [here], and with it being so dry and due to the higher elevation here, it is much easier running back home.”
(Nick Pembroke) Nick Pembroke, a sprinter at Southern Utah University, sets himself in the starting block for the 4x400m at the Aztec Invitational in San Diego, California, in March 2024.
Dust from the lake
Kerry Kelly, associate professor in chemical engineering at the University of Utah, measured these particles to try to answer some of these questions. Kelly was lead author in a study published in November in the journal Atmospheric Environment, in which researchers found high levels of reactivity and bioaccessiblity (how well a substance is absorbed into the body) in comparison to other sediments from spots around Utah. There was a noticeably higher level of manganese, iron, copper and lead.
“Lead is a concern for developmental reasons,” Kelly said. “Manganese, iron and copper — these are transition metals and are known to be very irritating to your lungs. Once you get irritation, that can lead to this whole inflammatory response … and its adverse health effects, like asthma.”
Other research shows air quality significantly damages runners’ respiratory health and performance. Pollutants like ozone, particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide are particularly harmful during exercise, as deeper and more frequent breathing allows these pollutants to bypass natural nasal filtration and reach the lungs directly, according to researchers at the University of Birmingham and the Canal and Rivers Trust.
Kevin Perry, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Utah, said more exposed lakebed at Great Salt Lake also leads to more dust storms. Utahns living along the Wasatch Front and near the lake’s shoreline, he said, tend to experience, on average, four to five dust storms a year.
(BYU Media) Elyse Jessen, a middle-distance runner for Brigham Young University.
Battling ‘track hack’
Elyse Jessen, a middle-distance runner for Brigham Young University, said she is more familiar with visible air quality issues, such as polluted winter inversions and smoke from summer wildfires, but was unaware of the challenges facing Great Salt Lake.
“Whenever we are pulled inside for training at BYU, I am always under the understanding that’s it is only due to [the] temperature or if it’s snowing,” said Jessen, “Obviously, there are days when I go outside, and I can see smog in the air, but I have never had conversations with my teammates or my coaches concern about air quality.”
Jessen added that she sometimes experiences “track hack,” a term runners use for throat irritation after intense training. It’s medically known as exercise-induced bronchostriction, or EBI. The American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology notes “track hack” is a common condition among competitive and elite athletes — a side effect of breathing in dry or polluted air during periods of exertion.
“I have been running since I was 15, but I don’t think I have personally experienced any health issues from the air quality,” she said. “I don’t have asthma, and the only time I really have issues breathing are after really hard workouts or when it’s scorching hot outside.”
Now, Jessen said, she is starting to understand how environmental factors unique to northern Utah can affect her training and performance and plans to research mitigation strategies.
“I never knew that I was breathing in so many harmful things in the air,” she said. “But now I want to learn more about how to adapt for my health and performance.”
Gabe Haymore wrote this story as a journalism student at the University of Utah. It is published as part of a collaborative including nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune. Haymore’s class partnered with the Great Salt Lake Collaborative, a solutions journalism initiative that partners news, education and media organizations to help inform people about the plight of the Great Salt Lake — and what can be done to make a difference before it is too late. Read all of the collaborative’s stories at greatsaltlakenews.org.
