Rose Bowl, 2012 in review, 2013 goals

Shoutouts:

• The Boring Runner, who not only ran 2 half marathons in 2 days at the New Years Double, but set a PR in 1:28:12 as well!  And won his age group both races too!  

Rose Bowl:

After Stanford's win in the pac 12 title game over UCLA, it was onto the Rose Bowl!  Like I said in my last post, I thought Stanford would win 31-20 because of Stanford's superior defense.  I thought the offenses would be about the same.  

The weather the day of the game was fantastic - it was maybe 60-65 degrees, we were setup in lot 2 to the north side of the stadium for our Toby the Van tailgate.  And if you see the creek in the pic, little did we know that it would provide entertainment all day by people trying to jump the creek lol.  

Was really difficult getting into the stadium - I gotta be honest, I wasn't very impressed with the Rose Bowl stadium.  LA Coliseum was way better I thought.  The main problem was getting into the stadium. Seems like they should try to build escalators to the top row of the stadium from the outside to spread out the people that have to go through the tunnels.  These tunnels are the only way into the stadium, also seems very dangerous in case an emergency happens inside the stadium.  What are their contingency plans?  They couldn't blow up the Rose Bowl and rebuild it could they?  What I just said is likely sacreligious, but just wasn't very impressed with the stadium.

Stanford band out on the field - gorgeous day

Our seats were literally on the 45 yard line - 1st row!  Insane!  In the 2nd quarter my group actually got on TV - a girl with the TV camera started the shot with me, maybe because I was wearing a Stanford Rose Bowl shirt?  So if you watched the whole Rose Bowl, you likely saw me and my crew on TV =)

After each offensive or defensive series - most players headed straight to the gatorade station, bummer that Stanford ended up on the sunny side of the field

this was primarily the defense area, were were so close we could almost hear the defensive coordinator speeches lol

most of the defense

Wisconsin band was way more organized than Stanford band

This guy was in the wrong stadium - Michigan State? lol

sideline reporter Heather Cox taking notes for her next interview

As for the actual game, Stanford got off to a hot 14-0 start in the 1st quarter after a spectacular catch by Jamal Rashad Patterson and a run TD by Ashley Young.  Then the defense tightened up for Wisconsin (and Stanford offense was awful), leading to a 17-14 score at halftime.  The 2 teams again were locked into a defensive battle until the 4th quarter when Stanford got another field goal to make it 20-14.  Wisconsin was driving, but Stanford got an interception with 2 minutes to go to seal the win - Rose Bowl champs!  It was an awesome experience being so close to the field!  

2012 year in review:
Now that 2012 is drawing to a close, it's time to review the year that it was.  My 2012 goals post was posted in December 2011.  Here were my goals for 2012:

Goal 1: get healthy
Verdict: hit or miss
I started 2012 with a right ankle stress fracture that was likely caused by returning to running too quickly, and also by playing soccer.  So I was working on getting this injury healed for a while.  I would say right now that I feel no pain in my right ankle.  Though throughout the year I noticed that my inside left knee gave me problems occasionally, likely caused by the fact that I had runners knee injury in May 2011 that I rehabbed by doing strengthening exercises.  For whatever reason over the past 2 weeks my runners knee symptoms have come back a lot, and I think I need to take a break from running until the symptoms go away.  I am working on doing yoga and strengthening exercises often.  I also think that I need to consistently do spin or yoga or strength training year round no matter how my body feels - I can't get lazy with this, or I might have to stop running for a bit like I'm doing right now.

Goal 2: run a race
Verdict: achieved
I ended up doing 2 races in 2012 - Bay to Breakers in May (when I was maybe 85% healthy) and Eugene 10K in November (when I was maybe 90% healthy).  The injury that wasn't totally healed in May was my right ankle stress fracture.  And last month it seemed like my left knee was giving me some problems, but both during the race and after the race I felt fine.  All I can think of is that I didn't foam roll or stretch as much as I should have after the race, so my calves and legs tightened up, likely tightening up my IT band and possibly causing some of my runners knee symptoms that I'm feeling now.  Weird that my body can revolt like that over only a 2 week period.

Goal 3: run a half marathon
Verdict: not achieved
I did do a 11.3 mile training run back in September, though I never did run 13.1 miles during 2012.  My body felt like it could have ran 13 miles at certain points during this summer, but the opportunity to do a race didn't seem to come.  I didn't want to injure myself again, so maybe this was why I hesitated some on pushing myself to a half marathon.

Goal 4: run a marathon
Verdict: not achieved
Since I didn't do a half marathon, no way I could have done a marathon lol

Goal 5: set a PR
Verdict: not achieved
I figured that this goal was a long shot, but figured I'd put it out there anyways.  I came somewhat close to this - I was off by 2:33 from my 10K PR at the Eugene 10K race.

2013 goals:
Although 2012 was way better than 2011, I have still had some injuries to worry about during 2012.  It is unfortunate that I am feeling pain in my left knee right now, I hope that by resting for a bit and doing strengthening exercises that my body will feel better.  Maybe my body won't let me run more than a certain distance again due to mechanically having problems.  I'm not sure what the answer will be.  I'm going to copy my 2012 race list for 2013 - in hopes that I can do these in 2013:

• Bay to Breakers 12K - 5/19/13
• SF half marathon (2nd half) - 6/16/13
• SF Giants half marathon - 9/15/13
• SJ half marathon - 10/6/13
• 2 Cities marathon (Fresno) - 11/3/13
• Los Gatos Resolution Run - 1/1/14

2013 priorities:
Priority #1 - get healthy
Now that my body is starting to feel some left knee runners knee symptoms again, I need to work on getting healthy again.  My right ankle stress fracture is finally in my rear view mirror I think.

Priority #2 - strength train consistently
I think that a major factor in my left knee starting to feel pain again is not strength training consistently throughout the year.  I need to do spin class, yoga or lower body strength workouts at least twice a week no matter what I'm doing during the year.  No exceptions.  My ratio of runs to cross training workouts hopefully will be 2 to 1 or 1.5 to 1 preferably.

Priority #3 - run the above race schedule
I'd like to at least be able to do Bay to Breakers and the half marathons listed above.  Again, we'll see what my body says that I can do based on how healthy I am.  Running a marathon would be a bonus for me, it would be nice to do another one sometime, but it all depends on how my body feels.

Priority #4 - set a PR
It would be nice to set a new PR, after not setting any in 2011 or 2012 mainly due to injuries.

How did your 2012 go?
What are your 2013 goals?