Air Quality Policy for Outdoor Appointments

Wildfire smoke has become a part of the reality in the Pacific Northwest. It’s not good for long-term health to exercise outdoors when the air quality is poor, so we’ve instituted a policy to support coaches and clients in making decisions about when it’s safe to meet outdoors.

• In “good” or “moderate” conditions (<101 AQI), coaches and clients can meet outdoors. Either are welcome to take precautions based on their sensitivity like wearing an N95 mask.
• When the air quality is “unhealthy for sensitive groups” (101-150 AQI), meeting is at coach and client discretion based on their health factors.
• If the air quality is “unhealthy” and above (>151 AQI), the appointment cannot meet outdoors and will be canceled or moved to Zoom or a climate-controlled indoor space.

For 1:1 and Small Group Coaching appointments that regularly meet outdoors, you and your coach will have a conversation about contingency planning during smoke season. As a client, if you are particularly sensitive to poor air quality, please let your coach know and you can set a lower AQI threshold than what we’ve written here. With your coach, you will decide on when to check AQI leading up to the session, what your threshold for moving a session is, and how you’ll plan to meet if the air quality is too poor to exercise outside.

For outdoor classes or other events, participants can cancel due to air quality without penalty if the AQI is too high for your health factors. The coach will monitor the AQI and cancel or move class as needed.

We’ll use the IQ Air website to monitor air quality, using the station closest to the outdoor session location. This website is updated approximately 10 minutes after the hour.