Cristina Ramirez: Finding Her Dash

Jan 1
4 min read

Updated: 4 hours ago

Some founders build companies from spreadsheets. Others build them from lived experience.

Cristina M. Ramirez, Co-founder and Chief Program Officer, created the DashStrom Curriculum through a series of transformative life experiences. The challenge of training for and completing three Ironman triathlons, taught her a lasting truth: we become stronger and more confident by pushing through struggle, persisting, and ultimately succeeding.

It wasn’t a theory. It was a belief she tested—again and again.

She Wasn’t “The Athlete”

Cristina will be the first to tell you: she was not an athlete growing up.

In fact, if you had gone looking for her in the gym as a teenager, you were more likely to find her in the back, smoking. Fitness was not part of her identity. She was never the kind of person who moved effortlessly through gym class or sports. In fact, by her 20s, Cristina was battling addiction and suicidal thoughts. Eventually, she hit a breaking point—and chose to enter rehab.

Recovery, Resilience, and Rebuilding

They say that sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to make a real life change. After rehab, Cristina realized that she truly wanted something different for herself. She wanted to be healthy for her two young sons. So she began to run.

Running changed her life.

It was hard.

It demanded discipline.

She had to keep herself going when her body and mind wanted to stop. But the feeling on the other side of a hard run? The deep sense of accomplishment, the clarity, the pride? It was intoxicating.

Over time, she started racing 5K's. Then she trained and finished marathons. And then she set her eyes the Ironman triathlon.

She trained and finished three.

She felt forever changed. Tested. Like she could really do anything. Cristina says that training and finishing these elite races helped her find her dash; her inner confidence, grit and growth mindset never realized she possessed.

And then her two boys would not run with her.

It Started as a Running Club

Even at just 5 and 7 years old, Cristina's were into music, not sports. She worried her sons might miss out on the priceless lessons she had earned through running and training. She wondered:

If I get their friends running, would my boys run too?

In September 2015, she started a running club in her boys' elementary school in Miami, Florida.

Cristina took her 20 Run Club Kids to a local 5K race. Most of the children cried. They complained. It was hot. But then something shifted. When they saw the finish line and heard the crowd cheering them on, they sprinted to the end.

They said they felt invincible.

Teachers and parents began commenting that the “run club kids were different.” They were more confident. They were carrying the lessons they learned on the field into the classroom and into everyday life.

Her running clubs grew. Soon she was coaching kids how to run in multiple schools around Miami. More and more children signed up.

Cristina had created something that was not just another after-school activity. It was a confidence-building experience disguised as a run club.

A Field-Tested Curriculum Emerges

In 2018, Cristina began teaching other moms across the country how to do what she had done: build a meaningful run club business while empowering children in their own communities.

She began to imagine what might happen if she could take these fundamental principles that worked in the run club format, and turn it into a curriculum where a child would not have to sign up to run a 5K to participate. Rather, she began to envision a youth enrichment program where children could feel a challenging moment in their bodies and learn skills to overcome them, following the same kinds of run club principles that seemed to resonate everywhere.

What if she could create games that were challenging enough to matter, but fun enough for kids to want to come back?

What if children could struggle, persist, and ultimately succeed in a way that felt joyful?

These questions became her mission.

It took three years to get the DashStrom curriculum right. She had to find the perfect balance: making activities meaningful enough to build grit, but fun enough to keep children engaged. Cristina kept refining, testing, observing, and listening.

She tested it with her running club moms. She starting pitching the idea to start-up accelerators. Through a combination of pitching and networking, she met Dr. Ketaki Desai. Immediately she recognized how Ketaki's values aligned with hers. Ketaki recognized the promise of Cristina's commitment to fill the void of youth enrichment programming that exists right now. Even more, she shared the vision for bringing the field-tested DashStrom Program to every child. Ketaki and Cristina co-founded and incorporated DashStrom in 2024. Together, they are growing the team, building the company, and bringing in advisors and investors to help turn a powerful program into a far-reaching movement.

23 Years Sober and Counting

Today, Cristina has been sober for more than 23 years. She speaks openly about the role running played in her recovery. Yes, it improved her physical health. But more importantly, it helped rebuild the parts of her inner life that had been missing or broken.

Cristina’s career spans Wall Street, Silicon Valley, education, coaching, authorship, and entrepreneurship. When her sons were born, she stepped away from the corporate world and became a preschool teacher — a transition she affectionately calls going “from Wall Street to Sesame Street.”

As a speaker, corporate trainer, bestselling author of Empowered by Discomfort, and award-winning coach, Cristina has helped thousands of people — from children to CEOs — challenge limitations and uncover new possibilities. Her work is known for being both deeply empowering and highly practical.

Clients often say that Cristina changes the way people see themselves. “The training changed my life radically with a confident mindset, it changed me and continues to have a ripple effect on all my people.”

“Cristina has helped me find the inner strength that I never knew I possessed.”

That combination of honesty, wisdom, and action has become one of her signature strengths.

Cristina’s journey: from addiction to recovery, from the back of the gym to elite racing, from Wall Street to preschool classrooms, from one small school club to a company with eyes on a national presence — is more than a founder story.

It is proof of the very thing DashStrom teaches children every day:

You can do hard things.

You can grow through challenge.

And sometimes, the most meaningful work begins outside your comfort zone.