Shawn Towne, the Fitch High School girls’ cross country coach, jokes that one of the top reasons to take his team to last Saturday’s Wickham Park Invitational in Manchester is the hot dogs from nearby Augie & Ray’s Drive In.

He also admits that the conditions Saturday, rain and more rain, left a lot to be desired.

“Are you kidding me?” Towne said. “I couldn’t stay warm and the JV kids stripped down to their uniforms and ran three miles in that stuff. Amazing.”

There were a few absences Saturday among Eastern Connecticut Conference teams, which will run their league championship meet Thursday at Norwich Golf Course (girls at 3 p.m., boys at 3:35 p.m.)

Stonington boys’ and girls’ coach Jenna Ross took her teams to be spectators at the Hartford Marathon on Saturday, hoping for the Bears to find some inspiration among the day’s elite runners. Norwich Free Academy’s boys attended Wickham. The NFA girls did not.

The main reason coaches list for attending the meet was for their runners to gain experience on the course where the state championships will take place Oct. 25. Several coaches mentioned they’d like Wickham to feel like their “home course” before heading there for the state meet.

“For us it was the need to see Class LL-level competition in an invitational setting,” NFA boys’ coach Chad Johnson said in an email, asked the pros and cons of attending. “My guys are used to running in the top 10 in dual meets and they need to learn how to move as a pack in a deeper race. Wickham provided that for us. Plus, I want Wickham to be our second home course. The more they run it, the better.

“... Regarding the weather, yes it was miserable and makes for a long day. But who is to say that the state meet isn’t going to be a rainy day? Kids have got to learn to race in that type of setting.”

Some young runners were exposed to the course for the first time, such as Fitch freshman Danielle McIlquaham.

“There is no way to describe or explain how in the middle of the pack there can be more than one finisher per second,” Towne said. “Only experience properly teaches that lesson. ... I’ve tried skipping Wickham and going up to the park the weekend after the ECC meet and running the course, but it had mixed results.”

The Ledyard boys won the seeded race Saturday. Coach Bill Billing, like many of his counterparts, thought it was important for his runners to experience the course, with two of his top five never having run it before (one freshman and one transfer). Also, he’s always liked the invitational, he said, dating back to when his son Jeff ran there for Fitch.

Ledyard girls’ coach Bruce Douglass, in his 42nd season, said some of his runners did well Saturday and some did not. Either way, it’s a good thing to know.

“We discovered both,” Douglass said. “Confidence for some who did well. A reminder that a big race is a whole different animal than our dual meets and requires a different level of intensity and focus.”

Douglass called the meet a great experience, for better or worse.

“Wickham is a difficult and demanding course and you can only go to the well so many times in one season,” Towne said. “The athletes will have heavy legs after racing on Saturday and coming back Thursday on another course that is hilly and demanding. ... If your athletes did the proper training during the summer, they have yet to peak and can handle the two meets, but if they have not they may be flat.”