lm(deviance ~ poly(myDF$distance,3,raw=T))

Coefficients:
                                     Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept)                         -0.014825   0.095987  -0.154   0.8774
poly(myDF$distance, 3, raw = T)1     0.031286   0.143283   0.218   0.8273
poly(myDF$distance, 3, raw = T)2    -0.080363   0.065591  -1.225   0.2215
poly(myDF$distance, 3, raw = T)3     0.021517   0.009377   2.295   0.0224 *