Roadside Flowers...and Ultrarunning

I'm not fortunate enough to do all my running on trails; in fact, I only get out to a trail to run perhaps twice a month or so.  Most of the time I log my miles on the rural roads around my home north of Greencastle, PA.

Two of my favorite summer flowers are going crazy right now: Chicory and Queen Ann's Lace.  Here's a typical scene (all images by Gary):

Imagine waist-high blue (Chicory) and white (Queen Ann's Lace) flowers, mere feet away from the runner on the road, stretching literally off and on for miles.  And these guys are flowers that you just gotta admire for their pluckiness and toughness: they seem to do well in roadside ditches, in gravelly, wasted areas that bake in the sun in summer and get dosed with road salt in the winter.  

Nevertheless, the Chicory and Queen Ann's Lace seem to not only merely hang on, but to thrive where other plants cannot.  And up close each of these flowers are stunningly beautiful:

Actually, this roadside running can be nearly as satisfying as trail running...provided you have sights such as these posies.