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After years of living with unexplained symptoms, professional ultramarathoner Devon Yanko, 41, was finally diagnosed with lupus, an autoimmune condition that leads to chronic inflammation that can affect everything from your joints to your blood cells to your brain. On good days, she’s able to complete the intense training that’s allowed her to become one of the country’s best ultrarunners: She’s won the Leadville 100, set the course record at the Umstead 100, and even earned a first-place finish in the grueling Javelina Jundred just weeks after receiving her diagnosis.
On bad days, though—which she tells SELF “feels like having COVID, mono, and the flu at the same time”—she swaps her rigorous workouts for gentler forms of movement, like walks with her animals on her farm outside of Salida, Colorado. Still, she keeps looking forward. In March of 2024, Yanko will take on Further, a six-day ultramarathon sponsored by Lululemon. The race will challenge each of the 10 competitors to run the farthest distance of their lives—and offer the opportunity to set some global records in the process.
While managing this high-level training with lupus can be tough, Yanko says the diagnosis actually came as a relief. Modification is a necessity, as is honoring her body—and her goals. Here’s how she balances it all, as told to health and fitness writer Pam Moore.
Running has always represented freedom for me. Even when it’s hard, I still feel it’s a gift to be able to put one foot in front of the other and come back feeling differently about myself and life, no matter what’s going on in the world or with my body.
In a typical week, I log about 90 to 100 miles, including one or two workouts per day and a long run once a week, depending on where I am in my season. But between being diagnosed with lupus in October of 2022 and, more recently, getting COVID-19 for the first time in June, I’ve had to prioritize my health over my training plan. So that mileage hasn’t been happening as consistently as I’d like.
One thing I’ve learned along the way is that there’s no one definition of success. Before my lupus diagnosis, my performance was my primary metric. Now, completing my training as planned or simply getting to the start line feels like a win.
While I’d rather not have lupus, it’s comforting to finally know what I’m dealing with after years of struggling to get an accurate diagnosis. Even before that, I didn’t consider myself completely healthy. I’ve been dealing with GI issues like gut-wrenching stomach aches and frequent diarrhea since childhood—my doctors say it’s “undifferentiated colitis,” so it’s similar to Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. I also have Hashimoto’s disease, an autoimmune condition that causes a decline in thyroid hormone production. But I think my lupus first started to show up in 2016. That was when I started noticing that my body had a hard time recovering: I’d get a cold, and instead of clearing up within a week, it would hang around for a month.
I missed tons of races due to illness, but because I didn’t meet all the diagnostic criteria for lupus, I was diagnosed with undifferentiated connective tissue disease. In other words, they had no idea what was wrong with me. Although I was being treated for my stomach issues and thyroid imbalance, I didn’t have access to specific medications without a lupus diagnosis. So I wasn’t improving.
Then, in June 2022, I started feeling markedly worse. I developed Raynaud’s disease, which caused my toes and fingers to turn white and blue and go numb. For most people, cold air is a trigger, but I was having attacks even in 70-degree weather. I also had intense fatigue, really bad joint pain and stiffness, cold sores that didn’t respond to medication, and chest pain that eventually felt like someone was driving a knife through my lungs. The discomfort got so bad at the Hennepin Hundred 100-mile race in October that I ended up dropping out at mile 50, when I was leading the entire field.
It turned out I had pleurisy, a condition in which the layers of tissue between your lungs and your chest wall become inflamed. It’s a common problem among people with lupus. Within a few days of dropping out of the race, my rheumatologist diagnosed me with lupus. The first thing I asked him was whether I could keep running. Thankfully, he encouraged me to continue.
To manage my lupus, I take immunosuppressant medication to keep my immune system from attacking my healthy organs. I’ve also had to focus on reducing stress, make some dietary changes, and try to avoid germs (I still wear a mask if I go on airplanes and in crowded places).
But I’m not going to let my health force me into retirement. In fact, I’m focused on training for Further. My goal is to see how much distance I’m capable of covering over a six-day period. In 2020, I completed a 10-day challenge to finish 10 50Ks—in the first six days, I ran just under 199 miles. As for how much I’ve racked up in one day, my current record is 101.5 miles. I’d love to hit certain mileage targets each day at Further, but the event is about so much more. All of the competitors are women, so it’s really a celebration of our potential. If I can be present with my Lululemon teammates and celebrate their achievements, I’ll consider it a success.
I know the biggest hurdles will be figuring out sleep, fueling, and little things, like getting comfortable running in glasses, since I can’t wear contacts for the entirety of the six-day race. But I just want to enjoy the heck out of myself while doing something that challenges me.
At this point, I’m still learning what it takes for me to optimize my training with lupus, but these are some of the strategies that are working for me so far.
1. Track how you feel, and look for patterns.
I treat my symptoms like a science experiment. I use an app called Bearable to track variables like my diet, stress levels, mood fluctuations, sleep quality, and the 40 or so symptoms I may experience, depending on the day, including fatigue and dips in energy, joint pain and other types of pain, Raynaud’s, and skin issues. Keeping track of all these factors helps me identify any possible correlation between my daily habits and my health.
For example, I wear a Whoop to analyze my sleep, and I’ve discovered that when I don’t get enough of it or I end up tossing and turning, my symptoms tend to act up the next day. I’m really strict about doing my best to turn in by 8 p.m. and aiming for eight hours per night. I’m generally in bed for longer than that, though—even though I’m probably awake some of the time—since I’ve never been an efficient sleeper.
I’ve also seen a direct correlation between my symptoms and socializing. I love people, but as a natural introvert, being “on” really drains me. I live in a pretty remote area, and I work at a running store in town one day a week. I’ve figured out that while I love chatting about pounding the pavement with fellow runners, being around customers all day once a week is probably the most I can handle.
2. Experiment with nutrition (but try not to stress about it).
There’s no one diet that works for everyone with lupus. I’ve tried all kinds over the years, including a Whole 30 approach (I focused on eating whole, unprocessed foods), a paleo diet, and just eating whatever I want. So far, I haven’t landed on something that’s 100% right for me.
Right now I’m working with a dietitian. With her support, I’m experimenting with a program that’s focused on making sure my diet includes foods that contain certain nutrients based on my personal health needs. As I try different meals, I keep track of what I’m eating and how I’m feeling so I can hopefully identify trends. I haven’t been able to tease out any definite patterns yet, and stress—including about food—definitely exacerbates my symptoms. So I’m trying to find the balance between paying attention to how my diet makes me feel without getting too hung up on it.
3. Give yourself grace and lean into modification.
Even when you do everything “right,” there are going to be days when you just can’t complete your workout as planned, and it’s really important to learn to accept that. When you’re already feeling bad, either physically or mentally, because of your symptoms, there’s nothing to be gained from beating yourself up for not being able to log your workout.
So I try to be kind to myself and just do what feels good at the time. Maybe I can’t do 10 miles, but I could do four. Or maybe I jog alongside my horse or take a mellow walk with my baby mini donkey. If I start to feel anxious about missing a run, it helps to zoom out and look at my career as a whole. I know one workout is not going to make or break my performance. Sometimes you just need to rest, and that’s more than okay.
4. Trust and honor your feelings and experiences.
Not every person with lupus has the same symptoms or responds the same way to different foods or medications. For example, most people with lupus develop skin rashes and sensitivity to sunlight, but those are issues I’ve never had to deal with.
It might sound obvious, but when you’re desperate for answers, it can be tempting to take tips from some random person on the internet. But paying attention to your own experience and intuition will always serve you better than advice from strangers. There are always going to be people who will tell you to eliminate X, Y, and Z food or to take a specific supplement, but you need to remember that just because that worked for them, it’s not necessarily going to work for you—and trying a bunch of stuff without input from you doctor or dietitian could actually make you feel worse. So don’t compare yourself to other people; remember that you’re on your unique path to understanding your own body.
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