Today was an epic day.

But first, here is a photo of a control from the Sprint event on Friday night. It has just been posted on the official Norwegian O-Festival website. I was sorry not to have this control on my course. I think the official IOF description would be "Northern Moose, South End".

Unusually, Linda and I spent the day doing different things. I'll start with her day as it will interest the most people. I wasn't there, of course, so my summary may not be completely accurate but in a few years time Linda will have forgotten what she actually did and this will become the official record.

After I had left for orienteering Linda had a long phone call home and then set out on foot to see the sights of Lillehammer. This involved crossing the footbridge and then following Google Maps up to one of the city parks.

This park had a fountain in it.

From here she found her way along one of the rivers that flow through Lillehammer.

At one point, the river had been developed to provide the locals with a swimming hole.

Linda reports that she didn't swim herself but she did see a jogger take a brief dip.

As well as water features, Lillehammer loves its sculptures. There is a photo of one in today's title image and if you go back to the post about our first day in Lillehammer you'll see some more. Not all sculptures reflect classic Norwegian themes.

And everywhere you go in Lillehammer, the ski jumps dominate the skyline.

After her walking tour, Linda returned to our cottage and relaxed until I got back from the orienteering.

Meanwhile, I was having an epic day, as I may have already mentioned. Today's Long event used the same event centre as yesterday's Middle.

However, today we were using the terrain to the north of the event centre. And to get to the start, we had to go up by ski lift.

Each chair took six people and a new chair arrived every 10 seconds or so, so there was no waiting. There were some good views from the top of the chairlift but, as I was dressed for orienteering, I didn't have my phone with me so no photos.

The first indication that today was going to be epic was when I picked up my control descriptions and discovered that my 5.6km course had only eight controls. And one of those would turn out to be at the start of the marked finish chute.

It may help to point out that I had a very late start with only two H60 competitors starting after me, although other courses would have starters for the next half hour or so.

The true epicness of the day was confirmed when I turned over my map and saw the longest first leg I've ever had in an orienteering race.

To put the map into perspective, it is A3 with a 1:7500 scale. I think (without actually having measured it) that the first leg is about 2km long.

After yesterday's Middle race in a nearby area, I was convinced that I had Norwegian forests sorted. The trick, I believed, was to run the marshes where possible. Alas, yesterday's map had boasted just one type of marsh and today there were several.

I used a couple of track junctions to pinpoint where I would begin my descent down the rocky hillside hoping, in vain, that I could avoid the worst of the rocks. I crossed the marsh at the bottom, dismayed to go knee deep several times. I hadn't yet worked out the difference between a blue marsh and a green marsh.

Up the hillside on the other side I couldn't make any of the features fit, mainly because I was still associating green stripe with forest rather than marsh. Still, I wasn't worried as I knew I had the track as a catching feature If I ran too far so I just followed my compass bearing. And stopped every couple of minutes thinking "why doesn't it fit"?

Find the track I did and, confident that I was to the left of the control, I ran down the track looking for where it crossed the stream. It soon crossed a marsh, so I dashed to where the control should be - and there was one there! But it wasn't mine. Also there was an English woman who was also having her first experience of Norwegian forests and cursing her husband for convincing her this weekend was a good idea. She was looking for the same control as me and had some strange theory about the rocks on the map and using them to find our control. I was dubious so went back to the track and ran up it this time, aiming to positively relocate off the small tarn. As I ran, I looked at the marsh to my right and the whole map just clicked. A moment later, the track crossed the stream, I ran to the control - which was just where it should be - and I was away. Just a shame it had taken me 43 minutes to get to that point.

From here it was straightforward. I nailed 2 and 3, made an error on 4 after running into the English woman again and exchanging relocation stories. Her theory had worked but not as quickly as my using the track. I was pondering this as I left the lake above 4 and plunged down the hillside. With my concentration elsewhere, I soon realised I didn't have a clue where I was and had to climb back up to the lake and take it more carefully the second time - straight to the control.

I was particularly happy with the climb to 5. I identified where to begin the climb, climbed up the boulder field and identified the three large rocks at the top and then enjoyed another view from 5.

From here, tracks simplified the remaining legs, and removed the temptation to go straight through the particularly dodgy marsh on the way to 7. Soon I had punched 8 and made my way down the finish chute which was as muddy as only a finish chute in a Norwegian forest where 2000 people have already run could be.

There was no one at the finish. This was unsurprising as it was 1300m down a steep hill to the event centre and download. I had been a late starter and then taken 2:12 for my course so I was a very late finisher. Not the last, by any means - the clothing return was still full of jackets waiting for their owners to emerge from the forest.

But by the time I had changed the event centre looked very different.

And once more, I wasn't last - thank you very much, Jan Edvin Blomkvist.

I really enjoyed running the epic Norwegian terrain. It wasn't more difficult than NZ forests, just different. I think that if I ran here regularly I'd probably get quite good at it. But I'll never be able to run over the rocky terrain like those mad Norwegians.

Back at the cottage we enjoyed a traditional Norwegian meal of Norwegian meatballs, prepared to a traditional Norwegian recipe that Linda made up.

After dinner we enjoyed the traditional Norwegian sauna that every traditional Norwegian house seems to have. Tomorrow we move on again and this time we are moving closer to home, albeit slowly.