Running Community Gathers to Help Clean Wickham Park

So you think cleaning up your yard after Winter Storm Alfred was difficult?

Take a look at Jeff Maron’s to-do list: clear trees and branches from 250 acres of .

The park’s director got a little help from the running community on Sunday when between 80-100 men, women and children lent arms, legs and backs to the relief effort.

“It would have taken our staff a week and a half to get done what got done today,” Maron said after the two and a half hour volunteer session. “The biggest thing for us was the gardens, and that’s where they helped the most. They (the gardens) were overwhelmed with damage. Some of the trails got done, but the main concentration today was to get the gardens back in shape.”

The clean-up session was organized by Trinity College cross country and track and field coach George Suitor.

“The park has always been generous to everyone, especially running,” said Suitor, who has been at Trinity since 1992 after leading Manchester High to three state championships. “The park always welcomes us and helps us. They let the kids practice; they run the state meets, the New England championships, the Wickham Park Invitational and the summer races. It’s a no-brainer to try and help.”

Suitor’s athletes poured out of cars and vans at 9 a.m. on a December day that felt more like mid-October, with clear skies and temperatures approaching 50 degrees. They were joined by runners and coaches from across the state who wanted to lend a hand to the venerable park.

“George coordinated the whole thing,” according to Bill Baron, who is a track and cross country coach at East Catholic and runs the Wickham Invitational among other races. “There was a little publicity in the papers and emails and these coaches came. We had people here from Thomaston; Marty Ogden from Weston, people from NFA, Tolland, Berlin, RHAM and my own East Catholic kids were here.”

Rival coaches and runners traded stories and laughs while piling branches and logs neatly for Maron’s crew to grind up this week. Many of the volunteers were either at the park on the afternoon of Oct. 29 for the CIAC Class LL championships, watching the storm gather speed or were affected by the postponement of the final three races of the day.

“My favorite thing to talk about is weather men,” Maron said as branches were being fed into a commercial chipper behind him. “And all the predictions were that the changeover from rain to snow wasn’t going to happen until after dark. So at 11 o’clock we started seeing flurries. Then it seemed to get a little harder. So finally you could see the kids were slipping and that’s when we had to stop.”

The park will have plenty of wood chips to disperse on the trails once they are cleared, but will have to hire an outside contractor to cut many hazardous branches hanging from tall trees. Maron is optimistic that the park will be ready to reopen in March and rather than cut back on staff for the winter months, he will keep his crew of nine together through while the park is closed. They were all thankful for the help they received Sunday morning.

“We had the 30th Wickham Invitational this year and we have been hosting the states for almost as long,” Maron said. “This is a time when people have come back and said a little ‘thank you’ for hosting the races and have helped us out when we needed the help.”