Last Sunday was the Long Beach marathon, half marathon, and 5K. Originally I was hoping to run the half marathon, but it didn’t fit into my training plan for the Avengers Half Marathon next month, so I signed up for the 5K instead. A nice, easy 3.1 mile run at 8:30 AM on an October morning was going to be lovely. As the race approached, fall was finally starting to arrive in Los Angeles and I was really excited about that. We’d had a lot of things going on at work since the beginning of October and I was scheduled to work last Saturday, but fortunately I was supposed to have a day off on Sunday. Perfect, right? Unfortunately things started to unravel on Friday night when I got called in to work at 8 PM for a couple of hours (even though it was supposed to be my day off). However, I still managed to get to the expo on Saturday before work to pick up my race bib and t-shirt, and I even laid out all of my clothes for the 5K so I’d be ready to go quickly the next morning. Then my Saturday shift at work turned out to be much more difficult than I expected, and I didn’t get home until after 10 PM. That might have been reason enough to skip the 5K the next morning, but more compelling was the fact that I had to be at work at 8 AM (despite originally having Sunday off) when the race didn’t start until 8:30 AM. Had it been earlier in the morning I might have been able to go, but I wasn’t that lucky. So I missed out on getting a Long Beach race medal this year, but I’m not really all that upset about it. I’m already planning to do the Beach Cities Challenge next year, which means three half marathons in 2015 – Huntington Beach in February, Orange County in May, and Long Beach in October. It might take a bit longer, but I’ll get that medal eventually!