From beaches to valleys to vineyards, oh my

It’s 3 a.m. when Kirsten Sprott runs down an unmarked road in the middle of nowhere. Her team already has been running for 20 hours straight from San Francisco through Marin County, but all of the picturesque views are lost in total darkness. The only sign of life is her pacer, Athena Wilder, trying desperately to hold a fuzzy mustache to her face while yelling words of encouragement.

"You get so delirious after a certain point, that you will do the silliest things to entertain yourselves," said Sprott, administrative specialist for Public Affairs at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). "We did nothing but laugh for 31 hours," added Wilder, the scheduler and coordinator in the LLNL Alarms division.

This is the spirit of 12 women who conquered the Reebok Ragnar Napa Valley relay race. The 200-mile course begins on a beach in San Francisco, winds up past Santa Rosa to Windsor and back down through the Napa vineyards, all on little to no sleep. The race lives up to its name, which means "warrior from the gods" in Old Norse, the language of the Vikings. Overcoming it involved six months of training and mental toughness, but most of all, the group had fun while doing it.

The team of LLNL employees, named Buns on the Run after the breakfast sandwich served in the LLNL Central Cafe, includes Kristin Atwood, Amanda Clark, Jessica Copeman, Michelle D'Hooge, Jenessa Dozhier, Lea Fresques, Cindy Heer, Nadine Horner, Janna Lamendola, Sprott, Wilder and Kelly Youngblood. They met each other in LLESA fitness classes and share a passion for being active. Despite having different types of personalities and different levels of running experience, they meshed well together from the beginning. Over the five months of training, many of them on the team met up before work and on the weekends to run and workout.

"The team motivated me. We’re all friends, and we see each other almost daily at workout classes. It’s constant support from friends and teammates to keep going. It’s fun; we enjoy it," said LLNL senior financial analyst Kristin Atwood.

Together the group raised $1,800 in donations through GoFundMe to pay for two team vans, food, gas and fuzzy mustaches. Ragnar participants decorate their vans with grass skirts, dress up in costumes, ring cowbells and have music pumping to match the adrenaline. Even with a van to lay down in before running again, they rarely got more than two hours of sleep over those 31 hours. The team tracked where runners were with the Find My Friends app and only had one runner get lost. That happened often to other Ragnar teams because the course is largely unmarked.

"During those long night runs you think, ‘I’m tired; it’s late; it’s dark and a little scary.’ I had to draw on some of my past experiences and remember that I’ve totally got this. It was also great knowing that at the end, all of my friends are going to be cheering for me," Atwood said.

The different legs of the relay were rated in difficulty based on incline, distance and time of day. Youngblood tackled the hardest leg of 13 miles with shin splints and only eating a single Rice Krispy Treat. Wilder ran the final mile of her leg beside Youngblood as a boost of energy.

"Kelly was amazing. There were so many great moments like that with this group," Wilder said.

As Sprott ran the final leg of the event, the team caught up to her with music blasting, hugged and finished the race together. "It was very emotional for me. When I came up the hill, I’ve never been so happy to see 11 people in my life," said Sprott. "Everyone was smiling and so excited. It was just what you need after going 31 hours."

At the finish line, Sprott told Atwood she was the team’s MVP for going above and beyond to physically prepare for the event. "I felt valued and appreciated. They recognized that while the race was hard for everyone, I had to put in a lot of work to be able to do it. It felt pretty awesome," Atwood said.

Buns on the Run finished first in the Women Corporate/Public Service Division, and the team is ready to do it again next year. "In some ways I wish it wasn’t over yet," Atwood said. "I’m already looking forward to the next big adventure that we do. It was great having something to train for, something to look forward to and having such a great group of people all in it together. Every time I see those folks around, we can smile and have those memories."

That spirit of togetherness manifested in their race medals that fit together like a puzzle to reveal the quote, "Together we can accomplish anything. We are Ragnarians."