Jogging in Saarbrücken
In the dark forest
I attended the Highlights Conference this week at Saarland University where I presented my AAMAS paper on Optimizing expectation with guarantees in Markov decision processes. I am staying in Sportcampus Saar which is very close to the university. It is a beautiful campus with three running trails nearby.
The three routes shown on a map. (Note that North is down in the map.)
On Thursday, I walked along trail #1 (blue, short). Today, I jogged along trail #2 (green, medium) which is about 7 km long. I left very early in the morning while it was still very dark but you could just make out brightness in the eastern sky. However, as soon as I started the trail and entered the forest, it was completely dark once again.
Around the 3.8 km mark, there was a very long stretch that was all downhill. I loved rushing down the hill; it was a thrill. I covered 500 meters in a matter of what felt like mere seconds. It was exhilarating, but also terrifying. I could not stop even if I wanted to. If I stopped running, I would have tumbled and rolled over and over.
Anyway, here’s the route that I took and some pictures that I clicked. Enjoy!
Map
Gallery
The faintest glimpse of sunlight in the sky.
Two benches in the middle of the woods.
The trees at the top of the mountain begin to see the sunlight. It is still dark below.
Tall trees tower the trail.
Houses and trees in the valley come to light as the sun begins to rise.
If you sit on the bench, you see the fence…
… and the sheep behind the fence see you.
The road is traffic-free. The sign says “Help me”.
It is still dark in the woods.
Continue left to stay on trail #2.
A parking lot from afar.
The (empty) parking lot from up close.
A cycle on the ground, a cycle up above.
Concentric circles for parking cycles.
The end of the trail. It is now fully bright outside. We have returned back to the starting point.