While some may dwell on the meaning of walking a mile in someone else’s shoes, Ron Davis has walked nearly 8,000 miles with someone else’s heart.
The 56-year-old Shaler native and resident, who received a transplanted heart in January 2022, will add another 13.1 miles to his personal odometer on Sunday when he walks the half-marathon in Pittsburgh.
“I walk every day. I just love to walk,” Davis said. “That’s the way I honor my donor and try to stay as healthy as I possibly can.”
Davis and his younger sister, Sherri Kirk of Sharpsburg, will be among more than 46,000 people participating in the Dick’s Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon, expected to be the most ever.
The half-marathon course follows much of the same path of the full 26.2-mile marathon, but turns back after the Birmingham Bridge. The races start on Liberty Avenue and finish on Boulevard of the Allies in Downtown.
Davis said he first walked the half-marathon in 2024 at the suggestion of his sister, who has multiple sclerosis and also is an avid walker.
“She wanted to see if we could do it,” he said. “I knew I could do it because I walk that much in a day sometimes. She didn’t know if she could do it.”
Davis’ own heart became too weak to keep him alive as a consequence of cancer treatment. He was 19 when he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, for which he underwent chemotherapy and radiation that damaged the left ventricle of his heart.
He survived a widowmaker heart attack in May 2007 when he was 37.
“They said I died on the operating table twice,” he said.
Davis lived with a pacemaker defibrillator for 15 years until his heart deteriorated to the point that his only options were a transplant or death.
Being told he needed a heart transplant wasn’t shocking news.
“At that point, I took it very well because I was deteriorating so fast,” he said. “I just wanted to feel better.”
After he had been rejected for a transplant elsewhere because of his poor health, Davis was accepted at Allegheny General Hospital, said Dr. Matthew Lander, his transplant cardiologist.
When a patient has too many red flags, some groups and programs find the risk of the surgery is greater than the benefit and don’t want to chance a poor outcome with a limited resource, Lander said.
“We all know hearts are a limited resource, unfortunately,” he said.
What Lander has accomplished with walking since his transplant is “amazing,” Lander said.
“We may have facilitated a new heart, but I think the engine that really drives him is his own,” he said. “It’s impressive to see. You don’t usually see that sort of exertion and dedication. That he’s doing a half-marathon is pretty special.
“For him to be on his death bed in the ICU to go to that is great.”
Davis and his wife of 23 years, Pamela, have a daughter and one grandchild.
Davis doesn’t know much about his donor, only that it was a man between 18 and 26 years of age. “My heart is young; the rest of the muscles in my body are older,” he said.
He walks, on average, 8 miles a day, sometimes more. He’ll walk on the riverwalk from Millvale to Pittsburgh and back some days, while on others he walks around RIDC Park in O’Hara when he’s volunteering at the Center for Organ Recovery and Education.
“Just being able to walk at the pace I walk is just an unbelievable feeling. For 15 years, I couldn’t come close,” he said. “None of this would have been possible without someone making a decision to become an organ donor.”
Instead of listening to music, Davis’ own thoughts are his walking companion.
“When I get out there, I just enjoy it. I just love walking,” he said. “My first half-hour, I pray. That’s my morning prayers. After that, I just look at everything out there. God has so many beautiful creations out there, and I just enjoy my surroundings.”
In the half-marathon on Sunday, he plans to enjoy the views and the people.
“The people cheering you on are just amazing,” he said. “I’ll be soaking everything in and honoring my donor by just completing the half-marathon and showing what you can do once you have a transplant.”