Challenging 20 Years of Fueling Habits
By The Feed.
For 20 years, Devon Yanko had thought she had marathon fueling fairly figured out—until she was challenged to take in more. Skeptical but curious, Yanko experimented and it changed how she ran forever. Yanko shows that growth comes from being willing to adapt—even after decades in the sport.
Devon: I ran my first marathon 20 years ago. I was living abroad in London and decided to run my first marathon while I was there. I had been training and running half marathons for two years at that point and felt intrinsically drawn to the longer distances. So I signed up for the Edinburgh Marathon, printed out a static training plan from Runners World, and I was off to the races.
In 2005, information about marathon nutrition was not readily available, nor was its importance understood. The book “Advanced Marathoning” which I would pick up after my first marathon, discusses the importance of carb loading before a race, but barely a page is dedicated to intra-race fueling. It basically just casually suggests you should drink sports drinks from aid stations and maybe get these weird energy gels called “Gu”. It should be unsurprising that I have no recollection of ever fueling during my training. I am also pretty certain that I did not bring fuel on race day and just drank sports drinks at aid stations.
My marathon fueling has come a long way over the years. After that first race, I tried to learn as much as I could about training, fueling, and racing – and over the next few years found a strategy that felt like worked for me. This amounted to about 4 gels per marathon, perhaps with a few extra grams of carbs sprinkled in from random sips of sports gels. This means for the majority of my 50+ marathons, 90% of which are sub-3-hour marathons, I fueled with around 100 grams of carbs (total). I was racing well and running fast. I never bonked. I thought I was doing pretty darn good.
In the spring of 2023, I was beginning to work on the project FURTHER with Lululemon and I was given access to sports scientists at the Canadian Sports Institute. I began working with a dietician, but as had been the case in the past when I worked with a nutritionist or dietician, I was more focused on my day-to-day diet and dialing that given my chronic illnesses and dietary restrictions. I had a meeting with the dietician soon after I raced the Eugene Marathon and I excitedly told her that I was proud that I had fueled so well during the race taking in a whopping 5 gels. She did not give me the kudos I thought she would or co-sign on my “perfect” race fueling.
Instead, she just said, “I think you should be taking in more”.
I did not like this, I thought I had been getting along just fine all these years fueling for my marathons and ultras!
When I started training for the Houston Marathon in the fall of 2024, I was once again challenged to consider more training and racing fuel. I had begun working with Precision Nutrition and the sports scientist I started working with suggested I try taking on more fuel and see what happened. I figured that I could at least try for the levels she was suggesting.
I practiced and practiced and trained my stomach (although to my delight, I never had any issue stomaching more gels). On race day in Houston, on a wildly windy day, I executed my fueling plan perfectly and took in 90 grams of carbs an hour. The result was steady energy and the ability to push harder in the last 6 miles than I usually had been able to do. I felt strong and when I crossed the finish line, I didn’t feel depleted or starving. I felt, dare I say, good. My recovery went smoothly and easily. I more than doubled the amount of gels I took in a marathon and I am 100% convinced that this fueling strategy is the way forward for me.
As athletes, we can often get married to the idea of what works for us and never explore different options or challenge those ideas. I am glad that, even 20 years into my career, I can continue to grow, learn new tricks, and continue to improve.