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Ed Yeates Reporting From Cache Valley on the north to Utah County on the south, nothing but bad air hovers. We've endured one more red alert day and another health advisory. Even healthy runners are taking refuge.
Compared to where we've been, temperature wise, it hasn't felt that bad outside today.
But take a look at the air we're bathing in.
Monique Heileson has decided to get out of this dirty tub and go indoors. Though she's healthy, working out for the Salt Lake Marathon, she had a bad experience in the bad air. During a five mile training run here in the valley she ran into some problems.
Monique Heileson, Runner: "About four miles in, started feeling lightheaded, started getting a little sore throat, finished up the run, went to work. By the end of the day I was coughing, sneezing. I could really feel it heavy in the lungs."
Was it a viral infection coming on? Monique doesn't think so since there were no other symptoms, and once she stayed inside she recovered.
Monique Heileson, Runner: "Saturday's run was above the inversion level, and it was snowing and it was cold but it was clear and clean, and the rest of the time, I've been spending on the treadmill."
A lot of other folks are doing the same thing. 24-Hour Fitness and other centers like it are seeing traditional outdoor runners coming indoors to work out.
EPA's tighter restrictions on air quality are giving us more red alert days this season, but researchers keep reinforcing the health risks, not only to the lungs, but the heart as well. In fact, LDS Hospital, working in collaboration with BYU epidemiologist Arden Pope, will be collecting data to see if there's a correlation between this inversion and others yet to come, and patients coming into the hospital with cardiovascular complications.
As we've reported before here on Eyewitness News, researchers want to find out if pollution triggered inflammation in the lungs may over the long haul progress systemically to the arteries of the heart.
