Races to Run

Let's Spartan!  Hosting a giveaway for a race entry to this race...coming soon!

http://spartanracemedia.com

www.colormerad.com

Ready to get colorful? Anybody and everybody CAN do this race!  Bring your strollers, your school-agers, and your smiles!  Color Me Rad is coming to Miami on Saturday, February 2nd!  If you're interested in joining our team.  We are Team Central.  Please list me...Christina Stocker...as Team Captain! We would LOVE to have you join us for one of the most radical, most colorful, most comical races on the planet!

Here are a few pics from my last 5K, the Color Run:

 My rose-colored glasses:-)

Post-race Color Party!

Ready to color it up!

******************************************************************************

www.downanddirtymudrun.com                   

 Mud Run 101

Muddy Buddies!

Mud Fun with my daughter!

My mini-me...every bit as competitive as her mommy!

Truth #1:  In the 6th grade I cheated off of Anna West’s paper to keep my #1 spot in the class.  Truth #2:  She offered, but really what difference does that make?  The honest truth is, I hadn’t studied and I just couldn’t own the fact that I might come in second.  

Two weeks ago, I wholeheartedly initiated, pounced, scratched, pulled, battled and possibly even bled, caught in the middle of an intense game of “Steal the Bacon.”  As Summer Camp Green Team Leader I felt a duty and a responsibility to help them climb their way to the top.  We stole and graffitied flags, persuaded my 5-year old to ride on a cardboard raft across mysterious, murky waters (even if a few naysayers might have considered it cheating), intimidated the opposition with boisterous cheers and taunting, played every game with absolute spirit and heart, and even bribed the judges to ensure a guaranteed win.  And it was with unparalleled honor and celebration that we will always remember Summer 2011 as the year “Green Machines” DOMINATED and proudly brought the title home.

I will challenge the guy beside me in a relay or compete against my own time.  I will run a little faster, sweat a bit more, or try my darndest to finish a second earlier. Either way, I am in it to win it.  And this is why my last race, the Merrell Down and Dirty Mud Run, stormed me completely by surprise.

My good friend, Sonja, was ecstatic when she came across the details for this race 6 months ago and asked me to run it with her.  This was a completely different course than any I had encountered previously...cargo climbs, several lake jaunts, military-style obstacles and mud, mud, and more mud.

Sonja had lost 40 pounds over the past year and works out routinely, however she did not, by any stretch of the imagination, consider herself a runner.  We began training 2 to 3 times a week and cherished every moment, especially our chic time.  She was apprehensive about training together, but her progress and determination impressed me. We each ran at our own paces and undoubtedly, I always accelerated past my natural pace.  Pushing myself towards more than what was even comfortable. The competitive monster within took over, with even one of my closest friends running next to me. 

Race day arrived.  We headed out to Cedar Hill Park at 6 am, resembling the female-version of the Dynamic Duo.  She and I were “Team HOPE”, arrayed in fashionably cut  green army-tee’s, tied perfectly with matching ribbons, camo headbands, and pig tails, to boot.  Anticipation and excitement were at an all-time high and Sonja was on the verge of panic. I was consoling her and then she notified me of her one final condition for the “Down and Dirty”:  We had to go at this one together...every step of the way.  Why hadn’t I thought of that?  Yes, I was a horrible, miserable, pitiful friend. Of course, we would run it side by side...inner beast be silenced.  

The start gun sounded, and we hit our first hill, a small mud pit, the low wall, the high wall, the tunnel, the ropes, the lake...and we were there...together...side by side.  At it...every second...drenched in dirt...laughing...sides aching...feet blistered...barely breathing...closest of friends...embracing this moment.  And as we struggled through that final slimy trench and graciously accepted our complimentary dog tags at the finish...my conscience was at ease...I was settled...deep in the recesses of my heart...competition completely set aside.    

Someone once told me, that if you leave this earth, having just 5 true friends, you are intensely lucky.  I would say, consider yourself privileged to know just one authentic, trustworthy, reliable, sincere friend to run this race of life.  Here’s to bigger obstacles, unending friendship. and impassioned laughter.  It might be the only thing that gets you through when the day-to-day gets a little bit muddy.