"God bless sports bars," I said, thinking uncharacteristically quickly. Fuck, I'm clever. Clever and kinda out of shape. I took the opportunity to stop running.

She looked at me quizzically, "God bless sports bars?" She switched stretches. Standing on one leg, she bent the opposite one up behind her, touching her heel to her sweet, sweet ass. Grabbing the ankle, she pulled it a bit to stretch her quadricep. The wonderful side effect of this was that her back arched slightly, causing her sports bra-clad breasts to strain forward in a most aesthetically pleasing manner.

"God bless sports bars." I repeated, frantically coming up with a cover. "I gotta think about something while I run, right? So I think about things I'm grateful for." Fuck, I'm clever.

"And you're grateful for sports bars?" She looked a little sceptical.

"Sure. Sports bars." I joined her stretching. My intention being to a) appear more athletic than I really was, and b) continue to look at her tits. "God bless sports bars, rainbows, babies, kittens, penicillin, Challupas™, petroleum based food products, the Roman calendar, organ grinding monkeys…"

Hee hee hee. I just said "organ grinding" to a hot chick.

"… running, sunny days in January, beautiful women. Christ - it's all good!"

"Amen to that, brother." She said.

Hey, cool. A granola chick! A granola chick who seemed to have suddenly taken a shine to me.

"Wanna run together? Clearly, I could use company." I offered quickly, not wanting to blow this shot.

"Sure." Cha-ching.

"My name is Flip." I grinned foolishly and held out my hand.

"That's an interesting name." She smiled coyly as she slid her palm against mine. "Is it short for anything?"

"Philip." I lied. Experience has taught me that chicks think that 'Flipperson' is a weird name. Chicks don't want to get naked with a guy who has a weird name.

"My name is Beth. Elizabeth." She let go of my hand and reached for the water bottle strapped around her waist. Tilting her head back, she squeezed a jet of water into between her parted lips. A small bit hit her chin, splashed off and dribbled down her chest. I watched as a few lucky drops darted and zig-zagged their way right into the jogging bra I had recently asked God to bless.

"Ready, Flip?"

"Uh… yeah. Let's go." Think un-sexy thoughts. Think un-sexy thoughts.

We set off and I had to force my pace to keep up with her. To hide my heavy breathing, I let her do most of the talking. As it turned out, we had a lot in common. We talked about running and our training programs - we both broke from the norm and did our long runs on Saturdays, taking Sunday as our rest day. We both hate geologists. We both have a deep interest in spirituality, but have difficulties with the currently popular ideas of religion. She pointed out that most people who call themselves Christians are really just Godless heathens lost to the real truth, clinging to an empty shell, hoping to fill their inner void the easiest way possible. I wanted to ask her which eastern philosophies in particular she was into, but I was too busy sucking oxygen into my lungs. Instead I gasped, "You know it." We both thought that technology was ultimately evil and would bring about the destruction of humanity. She called the Internet "the path to Armageddon". I love hippie chicks! They're so trippy!