It was another fine and beautiful morning, Saturday, April 28, 2018, in Nashville as our group of Microsoft runners and their families gathered for the seventh year in a row on the Shelby Street Pedestrian Bridge  on our way to the start line, joining the 30,000 other runners taking part in the event.  This was the culmination of 16+ weeks of training to take on the very hilly courses in Nashville.  Training this year was particularly difficult in that the weather was pretty tough.    In fact, this was probably the toughest year for training of the past 7 years – but also the best weather day for this event ever .  The pictures attached  are just a portion of our team as not everyone made it to the pedestrian bridge prior to the race for our group picture.  Our total number was over 40 participants.

Our group included participants in every event offered (Full Marathon/Half Marathon/5k).   We had Microsoft Employees coming in from all around the US including Redmond WA, Dallas TX, and St. Louis MO.  This was truly a One Microsoft accomplishment including employees from Southeast EOU, the US National Healthcare Organization, One Commercial Partner,  Public Sector (Education, Federal, and SLG), Microsoft Services (Premier and MCS), and the Dynamics Team.

By training over the past 16 weeks – each member of the Microsoft team was Certified “Q4 Fit and Ready” for the challenges  to close out FY18 Strong.  They have built stamina and have displayed the grit necessary to be successful.

The day started out beautiful with the temperature at around 50 degrees increasing to about 70 degrees upon finishing time.  The course seemed to change a bit from the previous year, although the hills were still very prominent throughout the course providing the challenges that we love and always expect in the Nashville marathon!  Definitely a great leg workout!

As always, the course provided us with a tour of the sights of the city starting on Broadway and providing a glimpse of Bridgestone Arena, Music Row, Belmont University and Mansion, Vanderbilt University, Tennessee State Capitol and Bicentennial Capitol Mall amongst many other sights. Spectators were up early and excited about supporting us throughout the day.  We truly enjoyed hearing the cheers from the spectators “Go Microsoft” as we would run by and at the finish line.  We took advantage of ALL the offerings we received along the way such as the shots of beer (no better way to keep those carbs going), oranges and bananas!

Race Support:  Great race support as always this year.  Water was available at every mile with Gatorade available at every other mile.   Parking was abundant and free and the race is set up in a way that you can walk to the start line – no shuttles needed!

Best part of all of this is that we as a team engaged our family and friends to drive towards a common goal (outside of work) that ultimately supported  an outstanding  cause – St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital .

We thank all those that participated with us this year and we are looking forward to another great run TWO-GETHER in 2019!

TWO-GETHER Runners