Yanko running marathons, San Anselmo bakery – Marin Independent Journal

San Anselmo’s Devon Yanko is easy to spot even among several thousand runners at a starting line for a long distance race.

She’s the tall one with the basketball player’s body.

Yanko, 36, in less than 10 years of contesting marathons and ultra-marathons, has transformed from a Fresno State basketball recruit into an elite runner.

And her 6-foot 1-inch frame certainly sets her apart from the crowd.

“I’m very tall — especially for a runner,” said Yanko, who grew up in Seattle. “You’d think it would help since I have (to take) less strides than shorter people.”

Long stride aside, Yanko is at the top of her game.

In March, she won the Oakland Marathon for the third time, distancing her nearest rival by almost 14 minutes.

“Honestly, I signed up at the last minute for the (Oakland Marathon) this year,” Yanko said. “I was supposed to do a 24-mile training run on that day, but I decided to jump into the race instead, since it was there.”

Yanko’s running resume is impressive. She has won 15 of 45 starts, including multiple wins in the Napa Valley Marathon, a victory in the Surf City Marathon in Huntington Beach and she captured last year’s Surfer’s Path Marathon in Capitola.

Yanko, however, seemed destined for big things on the hardwood floor when she accepted a basketball scholarship from Fresno State after graduating from high school.

But her college basketball career never panned out.

“I stopped playing basketball after my freshman year at Fresno State,” Yanko said. “I was dealing with a lot of different injuries and decided college ball wasn’t right for me. I actually wanted to get an education.”

So Yanko transferred back to her home state and eventually graduated from University of Washington.

In 2003, Yanko started tinkering in running.

“In high school, I practiced and played basketball eight hours a day,” she said. “I couldn’t go from being a dedicated athlete to doing nothing.”

Yanko, despite only a novice training guide to go by, qualified for the Boston Marathon in her first year of competing in marathons.

“I didn’t even realize I had qualified for the Boston Marathon,” said Yanko, who moved to San Anselmo in 2012. “I figured if I could do that well on a basic training plan out of ‘Runner’s World’ magazine, I could do a lot better if I trained harder.”

And training hard is Yanko’s passion.

Longtime friend and former running mate Jonathan Bernard, who now lives in Ohio where he owns a running store, says Yanko’s success stems directly from her unyielding inner drive.

“She has an amazing drive and work ethic,” Bernard said. “She’s a workhorse and runs high miles consistently, which is pretty remarkable considering how busy the rest of her life is.”

Bernard was referring to the long hours and dedication involved with M.H. Bread and Butter bakery in San Anselmo, which Yanko and her husband, Nathan, opened on Memorial Day in 2013.

“We wanted to open our own place for a while,” Yanko said. “Our original intent was not to open a place that intensive and expensive. But we had the opportunity to purchase the place. So we did it and it’s been a wild ride.”

Lately, Yanko works mostly only on the business side of the bakery, but in the early days she baked alongside her husband day in and day out.

“People always ask me how I had time to fit in all my running workouts while running a business,” said Yanko, who logs between 90 and 110 miles a week in training. “For me, it came down to the fact that running is a value and a priority. It doesn’t necessarily always feel good to stand on your feet for 10 hours at the bakery and then go on a run. But it was my counterpoint from working at the bakery. It was my thing.”

Yanko has twice qualified for the Olympic trials. In fact, she clocked her personal best marathon time (2:38.55) at the Olympic trials — the Houston Marathon — in 2012.

Even with all her success at the 26.2-miles marathon distance, Yanko believes her best stride is probably ultra-marathon distances.

“Sure, running a low 2:30s marathon might give you a warm, fuzzy feeling, but that’s not good enough for an Olympics berth,” she said. “It would get kind of boring if I just tried running a bit faster in every marathon. I’m very successful at ultra-marathon distances and my running coaches say that’s where my potential is at.”

Yanko says one of her favorite ultra-marathon races is the Comrades Marathon in South Africa, a 55-mile trail run which she will compete in for the fifth time on June 9.

“The Comrade is the biggest ultra in the world,” Yanko said. “There’s like 20,000 runners in the race. It’s the most competitive race in ultra running.”

The Comrade alternates annually as an uphill and downhill race. This year it’s uphill.

“You’d think the downhill run would be great, but it’s so hard pounding downhill on a body that has already run 30 miles,” she said. “The uphill and downhill, they are both equally hard.”

Yanko and Bernard, who met in Seattle, became fast friends when Bernard paced Yanko through the final 35 miles of the 2008 100-mile Western States ultra, which starts in Squaw Valley and finishes in Auburn.

“Devon is very good at going the longer distances,” Bernard said. “But she can also throw down a great time in a marathon and at the same open a business. She’s successful at whatever she does and she won’t let it be any other way.”

Still, Yanko loves to run and it shows.

“One of the big things I enjoy about running is that it can be a lot of different things at different times,” she said. “Right now I enjoy it as a way to challenge myself. But sometimes it’s a stress reliever. Part of the reason I have longevity as a runner is I’m not focused on the outcome of a race. I’m focused on the journey itself.

“Every time I reach I goal, I ask myself ‘what is the next thing that can challenge me or excite me?’ And I just keep moving on to the next thing.”