First Common Market Run

I was going to do a short tempo run at race pace today, but Kati Robertson needed a running buddy so I put it off until tomorrow.  I met her at the Common Market in Plaza-Midwood and we were joined by Emily Barrett and a dude named Ben.  This place is a meet-up point for one of the more popular Charlotte Running Club group runs every Thursday.  The market is just over two miles from my apartment so I decided to run there, and then the four of us took off down the road to do a four-mile loop.  As Emily led the way, I followed her and we chatted about life.  The pace was much slower than I was used to, but that felt fine as I have no need to run hard at this point.  I did force things down closer to 8 minutes per mile by the end of the run, however, and when we split up back at the market I ran about 6:30 pace on the way home.  Thanks to that, I remarkably managed to keep the average pace for 8.4 miles at just under 8:00.