“All I want is for it to rain ALL summer; I would take that over a smoky summer any day.”
The Pengelly Ridge Trail by the summit of South Sentinel
It was March, and Nico was already lamenting the impending smoke season months away. I gazed out over the Missoula Valley as the two of us ran slowly up the Pengelly Ridge Trail. A faint brown cloud, an inversion trapping pollutants from escaping into the atmosphere above, hung low in the valley. Nico and I both realized that while Missoula is a fantastic place to live, it is also often inundated with poor air quality. We kept looking out at the surrounding peaks and forests as we ascended the ridge, making our way over to Mt. Sentinel. Nico’s exclamation rattled around in my head – how many months would we be forced indoors that summer due to wildfire smoke?
Seemingly against all odds, Missoula dodged the worst of the 2019 fire season. But memories from the historic 2017 season are fresh in the minds of many of us. The American Lung Association agrees – their 2019 “State of the Air” report found that the Missoula area is the fifth most polluted area in the country for short-term particle pollution and the 11th most polluted for annual particle pollution. For a community defined by its amazing access to public lands and exceptional outdoor recreation opportunities, it’s not surprising that poor air quality strikes fear into the hearts of even the hardiest of Missoulians. Nobody wants to be laboring up the steep flanks of Mt. Sentinel while inhaling a big gulp of wildfire smoke or pollutants trapped by a wintertime inversion. Unfortunately, scientists are finding that climate change may well increase western wildfires and poor air quality in the coming years (1, 2, 3, 4). It’s easy to feel helpless when faced with smoke-filled skies, but trail runners in Utah and Colorado have found a constructive, fun way to fight for clean air.
Descending the Boy Scout Trail, part of the RUFA Mt Sentinel course, on a quick New Year’s Day Sentinel lap
Salt Lake City, Utah, home to famously dangerous air quality during wintertime inversions, is also filled with outdoor enthusiasts. Ultrarunner Jared Campbell started an event in 2011 while running laps on a local Wasatch Range peak. Campbell wanted to raise awareness and money to address Salt Lake’s air quality issues. Soon it became a formal wintertime challenge, called Running Up for Air (RUFA) that engages hundreds of participants each year. The Up For Air Series, which includes both climbing and running events, spread throughout the Wasatch Range and into Colorado over the past few years. RUFA events ask participants to rise to the occasion and climb a literal mountain, while also tackling the figurative mountain of air quality issues. For 3, 6, 12, or 24 hours, participants scale a local peak in February, climbing it as many times as possible in the given time limit.
While enjoying the clean air atop Mt. Sentinel with Nico last March, the rambling conversation we were having drifted again to Missoula’s air quality. We soon realized that Missoula would be a perfect fit for another RUFA event. Our valley is home to everyday adventurers and athletes that head up Mt. Sentinel on a regular basis. People that love being outside and cherish their easy access to trails as much as they do their access clean air. Our wheels got turning, and it wasn’t long before RUFA Mt. Sentinel was born.
Enjoying a beautiful view during an early-summer smoke-free day on Mt. Sentinel
The Runner’s Edge is excited to put on Montana’s first RUFA event, RUFA Mt. Sentinel! Join us on February 22nd, 2020 to ascend Mt. Sentinel for 3, 6, or 12 hours and take a stand for clean air in Missoula. All proceeds from the event will go to Climate Smart Missoula and their work to both address climate change, and provide vulnerable people and groups with HEPA air filters. Whether it’s your first time up Sentinel or your 100th, join us for a wintertime lap (or two, four, or ten) on Missoula’s favorite mountain. Casual hikers/runners trying to summit the mountain once can rub shoulders with those running and walking for 12 hours. It doesn’t matter whether you’re fast or slow, what matters is that our community comes together to take on the task of keeping air clean in our community. All events will finish at the same time (6:00pm) in a celebration of clean air and time well spent outdoors.
Tackling air quality issues is an incredibly challenging endeavor. Climbing a mountain in the winter is too. Join us on February 22nd for a hard, fun, and rewarding day on the trails of Mt. Sentinel to support clean air in Missoula.
RUFA Mt. Sentinel will take place on February 22nd, 2020.
To sign up or for more info, please click HERE.
Jeff Mogavero is a Runner’s Edge employee and RUFA Mt. Sentinel race director. When not running the trails around Missoula, he can be found surfing in the Clark Fork or dancing in his kitchen.
Runners Edge | Update
“To enhance lives by building community, developing relationships, and having fun.”
RUNNERS EDGE MISSION
As we at Runners Edge navigate this crazy time, we are looking back to our mission above. How can we continue to “build community”, “develop relationships” and “have fun”?
To be blunt, we need to sell product for us to fulfill our mission and we truly believe that product is one way to connect with customers and improve a running or walking experience. But today, product is the last of our worries. We are going to spend this time physically being away from customers improving as a business, finding ways to connect with customers, building our relationships…and hopefully finding some time for fun.
We know that not every community supports their local business like you do and we feel lucky and extremely grateful to be a part of this amazing group. If you have feedback on how we can improve or accomplish these goals, please let us know.
If you do need anything from us over the next few days, weeks or maybe even months, we are here. Thanks and good luck!
PHONE ORDERS
We will have somebody around the shop Monday – Friday, 10am-2pm for phone orders.
ONLINE
We expect to have our online store up by the middle of this week! Please check here throughout the week for more updates.
Interested in a gift card? Purchase them online here.
Virtual Challenge: The Jumbo Hill Climb
Mud season on the trails: How to navigate through messy conditions
Tatas, Tacos, & Tequila: A Bra Fitting Event
Running Up For Air Mt. Sentinel
“All I want is for it to rain ALL summer; I would take that over a smoky summer any day.”
The Pengelly Ridge Trail by the summit of South Sentinel
It was March, and Nico was already lamenting the impending smoke season months away. I gazed out over the Missoula Valley as the two of us ran slowly up the Pengelly Ridge Trail. A faint brown cloud, an inversion trapping pollutants from escaping into the atmosphere above, hung low in the valley. Nico and I both realized that while Missoula is a fantastic place to live, it is also often inundated with poor air quality. We kept looking out at the surrounding peaks and forests as we ascended the ridge, making our way over to Mt. Sentinel. Nico’s exclamation rattled around in my head – how many months would we be forced indoors that summer due to wildfire smoke?
Seemingly against all odds, Missoula dodged the worst of the 2019 fire season. But memories from the historic 2017 season are fresh in the minds of many of us. The American Lung Association agrees – their 2019 “State of the Air” report found that the Missoula area is the fifth most polluted area in the country for short-term particle pollution and the 11th most polluted for annual particle pollution. For a community defined by its amazing access to public lands and exceptional outdoor recreation opportunities, it’s not surprising that poor air quality strikes fear into the hearts of even the hardiest of Missoulians. Nobody wants to be laboring up the steep flanks of Mt. Sentinel while inhaling a big gulp of wildfire smoke or pollutants trapped by a wintertime inversion. Unfortunately, scientists are finding that climate change may well increase western wildfires and poor air quality in the coming years (1, 2, 3, 4). It’s easy to feel helpless when faced with smoke-filled skies, but trail runners in Utah and Colorado have found a constructive, fun way to fight for clean air.
Descending the Boy Scout Trail, part of the RUFA Mt Sentinel course, on a quick New Year’s Day Sentinel lap
Salt Lake City, Utah, home to famously dangerous air quality during wintertime inversions, is also filled with outdoor enthusiasts. Ultrarunner Jared Campbell started an event in 2011 while running laps on a local Wasatch Range peak. Campbell wanted to raise awareness and money to address Salt Lake’s air quality issues. Soon it became a formal wintertime challenge, called Running Up for Air (RUFA) that engages hundreds of participants each year. The Up For Air Series, which includes both climbing and running events, spread throughout the Wasatch Range and into Colorado over the past few years. RUFA events ask participants to rise to the occasion and climb a literal mountain, while also tackling the figurative mountain of air quality issues. For 3, 6, 12, or 24 hours, participants scale a local peak in February, climbing it as many times as possible in the given time limit.
While enjoying the clean air atop Mt. Sentinel with Nico last March, the rambling conversation we were having drifted again to Missoula’s air quality. We soon realized that Missoula would be a perfect fit for another RUFA event. Our valley is home to everyday adventurers and athletes that head up Mt. Sentinel on a regular basis. People that love being outside and cherish their easy access to trails as much as they do their access clean air. Our wheels got turning, and it wasn’t long before RUFA Mt. Sentinel was born.
Enjoying a beautiful view during an early-summer smoke-free day on Mt. Sentinel
The Runner’s Edge is excited to put on Montana’s first RUFA event, RUFA Mt. Sentinel! Join us on February 22nd, 2020 to ascend Mt. Sentinel for 3, 6, or 12 hours and take a stand for clean air in Missoula. All proceeds from the event will go to Climate Smart Missoula and their work to both address climate change, and provide vulnerable people and groups with HEPA air filters. Whether it’s your first time up Sentinel or your 100th, join us for a wintertime lap (or two, four, or ten) on Missoula’s favorite mountain. Casual hikers/runners trying to summit the mountain once can rub shoulders with those running and walking for 12 hours. It doesn’t matter whether you’re fast or slow, what matters is that our community comes together to take on the task of keeping air clean in our community. All events will finish at the same time (6:00pm) in a celebration of clean air and time well spent outdoors.
Tackling air quality issues is an incredibly challenging endeavor. Climbing a mountain in the winter is too. Join us on February 22nd for a hard, fun, and rewarding day on the trails of Mt. Sentinel to support clean air in Missoula.
RUFA Mt. Sentinel will take place on February 22nd, 2020.
To sign up or for more info, please click HERE.
Jeff Mogavero is a Runner’s Edge employee and RUFA Mt. Sentinel race director. When not running the trails around Missoula, he can be found surfing in the Clark Fork or dancing in his kitchen.
Product Review: On Cloud Venture
Lee Macholz is one of our 2018/2019 RErun ambassadors. She is a stud! After work and family time, she still manages to volunteer and/or run many events through Runners Edge and Run Wild Missoula. We got a new trail shoe called the Cloud Venture. Since Lee rocks the trails, we asked her to test out these shoes and her thoughts are below…
OnCloud Cloudventure
Specs: 6 mm; Neutral; 7.9 oz
I grabbed a pair of Cloudventures just before heading down to Moab, UT for spring break play time with the family. I was set to run the Behind the Rocks 30k and still hadn’t decided which shoes to wear. But since I didn’t have the time to take them out for a test run before the race, I stuck with my Xodus because I was already completely un-trained for the race and felt it was not terribly smart to add new shoes to the mix as well. However, we still had a full week to play after the race and I wore the Cloudventure for the rest of our time running and hiking in the desert. I also raced the Bitterroot Runoff in them last weekend so these shoes have seen some great early-season action.
OnCloud is a new brand to me, I’d seen a few folks in them over the past year or so, but I had not yet tried them on. In the store, my initial impression was that they were stiff and didn’t have much cushion.
The really noticeable thing about the Cloudventure is the sole. It is really knobby and kind of crazy looking. Most of the cushion for this shoe seems to be in the material of the sole. I am not the lightest on my feed on the downhill but the sole absorbs impact really well. The downhill sections of the
This impression didn’t last though. As soon as I got out on the trail with them, they proved to be really responsive and comfortable. I find that I don’t need, or even want, as much cushion in my trail shoes as I do in my road shoes. The Cloudventure has good support throughout the shoe. I can feel the arch support just enough to know that it is helping my foot, but not so much that it is too tall. The arch support does feel like it extends forward more than other shoes I’ve worn. It was noticeable enough to wonder if it would hurt or fatigue my foot, but it didn’t take long to get used to it and by the end of my first run I’d forgotten all about that. I tend to get a couple tender toes, but I have not had that issue yet with these shoes. The rest of the fit is good, with skinny laces that don’t come untied and a soft tongue that doesn’t slip or pinch. And they are really light weight – easily the lightest running shoes I’ve ever worn!
Bitterroot Runoff felt really great in these shoes. Then there is the traction. I love the “Missiongrip” traction on these Cloudventures. Wearing these in Moab was super fun and I felt kind of like spiderman on the rocks in these shoes. They gripped everything – going up and going down. The one thing that annoys me about the sole is that the spacing and depth between the lugs will pick up rather large rocks.
You know the feeling/sound when you get a little rock stuck in the tread of your shoe? Yeah, instead of smaller-than-pea-sized rocks that are usually easy enough to scuff out of your tread without stopping, I get thumb-sized rocks stuck and usually have to reach down and dislodge the rock. I’m not sure yet if that was just a factor of the rocks in Moab, or if that will continue to be an annoyance on the trails
around Missoula. We’ll see.
All in all, I think the Cloudventure is a great trail running shoe. My favorite things about them is how incredibly light they feel and how grippy the soles are. This makes going up and down hills a dream. If you are looking for a new trail shoe, check them out and come join me in chasing clouds in the mountains this summer!