When Andrea Ogg was a schoolgirl with an undiagnosed congenital heart condition, she wanted to play sports like other kids but couldn’t keep up with them. Coaches and even family members told her she was just lazy and lacked discipline.
Two decades later she was diagnosed with left ventricular non-compaction cardiomyopathy, and 15 years after that she received a new heart. In the five years since the transplant, running helped her discover what she calls the “athlete inside” of her. Three weeks ago she ran the Slacker Half Marathon, 13.1 miles from the foot of Loveland Pass to Georgetown, and on Sunday she will run the Donor Dash 5K in Wash Park.
“Right before my transplant, I couldn’t walk up a single flight of stairs without pausing to catch my breath,” said Ogg, 57. “I couldn’t walk across my living room without pausing. I could no longer go to the grocery store by myself. To go from that — remembering how hard it was to take those first few steps after my transplant, trying to learn to make my legs move again — to running down this massive hill (in the Slacker race) with all of these other people whom I think of as legitimate runners, wow.
“What an incredible thing that I’m only able to do because of a selfless stranger, and the decision they made to donate their organs,” she added.
Ogg doesn’t know the identity, age or gender of her donor. All she was told was that the person was young. “I’ve written to my donor family and shared my unending gratitude with them, but I never heard back,” Ogg said. “And while I would love to know who my donor is, of course I absolutely respect the family’s wishes.”
Ogg was unable to have children because her weak heart couldn’t support a pregnancy. Her condition was diagnosed when she was 36, giving her feelings of validation because it proved she wasn’t lazy after all. It would be 15 years before her condition deteriorated to the point where she was placed on a heart transplant list.
“One Saturday morning, I stood up and walked over to my bathroom sink, and before I made it all the way to the sink, I could feel that I was starting to lose consciousness,” Ogg said. “I grabbed the edge of the counter. My husband was laying in bed and he heard me say, ‘Oh my God, oh my God.’ Then he heard me hit the floor and I died. I was fortunate to have an implanted defibrillator that brought me back to life.”
With her heart racing at more than 320 beats per minute, she was rushed to the hospital, unaware the defibrillator had saved her life. That was late in 2017. She went on a transplant list in March of 2018 and received her new heart that July.
“All those years, people had been like, ‘Hey, how are you feeling?’ and I’d say, ‘Oh, I’m feeling good, I’m feeling great.’ I never felt good,” Ogg said. “I only realized what it felt like to feel good when I woke up with a fully functioning heart for the first time.”
A couple of months after receiving her new heart, she started cardiac rehab and soon joined a gym to gain fitness and strength. When the pandemic hit, she was forced into “serious lockdown” because she was immuno-suppressed.
“I decided to use that time getting into shape,” Ogg said. “I lost a bunch of weight. In 2020 I started hiking, and in 2021 I started hiking a lot more, doing brisk walking.” Early this year she decided to do the Slacker half, in honor of her donor, after a friend suggested they run it.
“I had always wanted to run, I had just never been able to run,” Ogg said. “It was like a bucket list item for me, so I decided to start training for a half marathon.”
When she went to a running store to pick up her race packet, she was stricken with imposter syndrome. She thought, “All these people are real runners. I’m not a real runner,” but she soon realized it was “ludicrous” to feel that way.
“I am a real runner,” she said. “One of the things I so love about the running community is that the community sees me as a real runner, too. Just like everyone, I’m out there trying to get better at it.”
That awakening left her wanting more of the kind of experiences she’d lived without for five decades.
“I had no idea that I had this athlete inside of me,” Ogg said. “Now I do. That athlete woke up, and I don’t want to not be able to do anything. I don’t want to miss a thing. I feel like I lived kind of a half-life for 52 years. I’m trying to make up for all that lost time.”
In Sunday’s race, she will get to connect with other transplant recipients, donors and their families. The Donor Dash, in its 24th year, is organized by the Donor Alliance of Colorado and Wyoming. Spokeswoman Cheryl Talley said organ donors can save as many as eight lives, and save or heal up to 75 others through tissue donation.
“This gives us an opportunity not only to honor the generosity of the heroic donor who made that decision to give the gift of life but also to celebrate alongside other recipients who are having, like Andrea, this miraculous second chance at life,” Talley said. “She is living it to the fullest, and honoring her donor while she’s doing it.”
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