Despite a lupus prognosis, ultrarunning legend Devon Yanko completed 2022 very sturdy and has her eyes on even larger issues to come back.
The race season is over for Devon Yanko. This yr she got down to do 5 100 milers, however solely accomplished two 100-mile races and a 50-mile race at Brazos Bend in December. It’s not what she anticipated when she began out. But throughout this rollercoaster yr, she’s needed to navigate each monumental highs and lows.
The highs? The 40-year-old runner moved to Howard, Colorado. She outright gained the Umstead 100, positioned fourth at High Lonesome 100, and, most just lately, she gained the Javelina Jundred in October.
The latter was a notable victory for the unsponsored Yanko. Yet, the information was pretty quiet regardless of besting top-of-the-line girls’s 100-mile fields this yr.
The lows? Just 3 weeks earlier than Javelina, Yanko was recognized with lupus, a power illness that causes irritation and ache all through the physique. She’d been unknowingly combating the illness as she tried to run 5 100-mile races as a part of her self-created “DY DIY Slam” (a twist on the Grand Slam of Ultrarunning).
While her life will proceed to vary as she adapts to a brand new actuality, her performances at Javelina and Brazos Bend have Yanko specializing in extra good days to come back.
“I can’t control what my body will do, not while racing and not with lupus,” Yanko mentioned. “But I can control my mind.”
The ‘Devon Yanko DIY Slam’
Yanko kicked off the yr with a 14:23:13 at Umstead 100 in April. That gave her the outright win and set a brand new course file and a private greatest. Needless to say, Yanko’s confidence was excessive.
“The last time I ran a hundred was 2017,” Yanko mentioned. “I started to think, ‘Oh, no, I still got it. The hundred is still good to me. This Grand Slam is going to be fun.’”
That was the unique plan. But, she mentioned, “Definitely, it didn’t work out that way.”
In June, simply forward of her second race on the Kettle Moraine 100, she felt off bodily. She had a tough time respiration. And 7 miles in, she collapsed.
Because a race employee examined optimistic for COVID on race week, a physician shrugged Yanko’s situation off as a case of COVID.
But she was decided to not let that sluggish her down on her DIY slam. So as Yanko battled an undiagnosed downside, she booked much more races to maintain her hopes alive.
Sadly, although, she was solely in a position to run another of the unique 5 races she signed up for: the High Lonesome 100. And she mentioned it was the worst she’d ever felt in an extremely.
“I started with a combination of an autoimmune flare-up … and PMS, so all of my fitness was erased,” Yanko mentioned. “It became laughable. I couldn’t eat anything. Then, I had the worst blisters that I’ve ever gotten in my entire 16-year career. The bottoms of the balls of my feet were coming detached, fully. At a certain point, you’re just like, ‘What next?’”
Yanko nonetheless managed a fourth-place end. But that’s when the dominos began falling. Doctors tried to deal with her low iron ranges however to no avail.
She needed to drop out of the Leadville 100 in August. Then, she dropped out of Run Rabbit in September. Yet nonetheless, that month, she knocked off two quickest identified instances (FKTs) in Colorado on 22-mile and 41-mile trails — the Mt Yale 360 and Rio Grande Trail. And she accomplished each in 1 week.
Confidence barely restored by her FKTs, Yanko signed up for the Hennepin Hundred in early October. Her health was feeling good as she began. She was ticking off the miles in beneath 7 minutes. But at mile 50, once more, she dropped.
The following week, Yanko went in to see one other physician, trying to find solutions.
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“They were like, ‘There’s nothing wrong. And you should just stop running,’” she recalled. “I thought, how are you going to tell me there’s nothing wrong with me, and then tell me to stop running? That makes no sense.’”
So she received a 3rd opinion the following day. And it paid off. Finally, Yanko was in a position to get a prognosis: She had lupus. That realization got here simply 3 weeks earlier than the Javelina Jundred.
Taking It in Stride
The information was bittersweet. An reply supplied a pathway ahead with therapy. No one may ever inform her, “There’s nothing wrong with you” once more. She knew what was flawed along with her, and he or she knew what she needed to do.
The outdated adage of “don’t do anything new near a race” went out the window. She began therapy instantly, lower than a month earlier than Javelina.
“I was put on the COVID-famous hydroxychloroquine. But it caused bad side effects. So my doctors advised to stop taking it,” Yanko mentioned. “I am still on methotrexate, a chemotherapy drug. I take that once a week, and took it the two weekends before Javelina. My doctor said, ‘Pick a day you want to do nothing because you’ll probably feel like death.’”
When Javelina arrived, every little thing was completely different. Yanko had stopped consuming sugar, lower out alcohol, and tried to restrict stress to mitigate and forestall irritation. That’s seemingly why her first gel through the race got here proper again up. It was the primary sugar she’d tasted in a month.
She pushed by means of the nausea, although. And on the opposite facet, she felt a bit of higher.
“[Yanko] wasn’t sure if she would ever be able to reach her full potential again,” mentioned Sandi Nypaver, Yanko’s pal and pacer at Javelina. “[But] watching her on the first loops, it looked like she knew that good days were still possible. She was dancing with the race director. She had her game face on.”
That movement state carried all through the race. Yanko slowly picked off runners all through the day till there have been no girls in entrance of her midway by means of the fourth of 5 20-mile loops. For 30 miles, she was on their own up entrance.
“We all go on the crazy train to nowhere, but all of my worst-case scenarios had already occurred,” Yanko mentioned. “They happened. I survived. And I’m still showing up at the next start line.”
She took the win in 14:36:10, reserving a golden ticket to the 2023 Western States.
“It was kind of surreal,” Yanko mentioned. “It’s so validating to be authentic to myself, when I am true to who I am, and I race the way I want to. That is what this result [is]. It was just so much more than I could’ve imagined, having this chapter end on a high note. [And] to do it at a race I love with people I love.”
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What’s Ahead
There are nonetheless miles to go for Yanko, each actually and figuratively.
Literally, she capped off the yr with the 50-mile win at Brazos Bend, although she initially hoped to do the 100 earlier than a lupus-related subject made her select the 50-mile race as an alternative.
Figuratively, she’s nonetheless studying about her power illness. She’s nonetheless adjusting to life along with her new medicine. Within 3 hours of ending Javelina, Yanko needed to take her chemo medicine once more.
She hopes to get on a unique one that’s authorised for lupus however has to attend to show that this one, which is cheaper, doesn’t work. Because, in her phrases, “insurance companies are assholes.”
Yanko has additionally been educating folks about lupus, particularly on her weblog.
On the opposite facet of the coin, Yanko can be stoked concerning the future. Javelina proved she was nonetheless on the high. She can compete. If all goes properly, she may return to the Western States podium. It’ll rely upon the day and one thing out of her management. But total, she’s prepared.
“I’m at a stage where I don’t have sponsors,” Yanko mentioned. “I’m not accountable to anybody. What sounds interesting to me? Maybe it’s a ridiculous version of the DIY slam. I’ll see what opportunities come my way next year. If I get an invite that sounds fun, maybe I’ll do that.”
“A doctor told me to stop running this year,” she mentioned, “But I’m obsessed, and I can’t stop.”
