It has been an unpleasant few weeks here in Colorado.

Brutal heat and air pollution have made many of my daily runs along trails like the one above challenging — to put it mildly. Recurrent poor air quality has taken a particular toll.

Smoke from eight major wildfires burning in Colorado — more than anywhere else in the contiguous United States right now — has mixed with urban air pollutants and been cooked by the unrelenting sun into a nasty, stagnant atmospheric stew.

That sou