www.redefinepossibility.com
going further
GOING FURTHER
Devon Yanko is a total badass in the running world (and life in general). She has completed more than 50 marathons and 75 Ultras since 2006. She is a 7 time member of Team USA including the 2009 Gold Medal winning team in Belgium for the 100k.
Devon has placed 1st at the Leadville, Javelina, and Umstead 100 milers (among countless other races), has 3 Comrades Marathon gold medals (Top 10s) and is a multiple time Olympic Trials Marathon qualifier/participant.
Hi Devon! I am so excited to be talking to you. So… How does one get into ultra running and wanting to compete at high levels of mileage?
I will try to give you a condensed life history. I played D1 basketball and played all my life through high school and into college. I got super-duper burned out on it and was going through some super traumatic stuff. I ended up giving up my scholarship, walking away and just never picking up a basketball ever again.
So I had been training at such a high level for so long on my own and part of the reason I was a good basketball player is because I was motivated to train eight hours a day on my own.
I grew up in a house where my mom ran the day I was born, my mom was a jogger, she would run the same loop every single day, which in hindsight is hilarious to me. Because she drove 20 minutes each way to run three miles every single day.
And I had always loved running on my own. When I was training for basketball, I would run a lot. I ran a half marathon as a sophomore in high school.
But I had always thought it was this adult thing, you know, “oh, look, there's a bunch of adults running through the middle of the street on this 5k or whatever.”
And so after I'd taken six or so months off, one day I thought I'm just going to go for a run. And, I started running when I went overseas to South Africa. I was studying abroad and my roommates and I decided to train for a half marathon.
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