Olympic bronze medalist and New York City marathon winner Rod Dixon paid a visit to Harwinton Consolidated School Thursday afternoon for the Kids Marathon program. Photo by John Nestor

HARWINTON — Students in the Harwinton Consolidated School Running Club are in the home stretch toward reaching an impressive goal. If they were looking for a little extra motivation to accomplish it, they got some this week.

Olympic bronze medalist and New York City marathon winner Rod Dixon paid a visit to the school Thursday afternoon and offered some encouragement and inspiration to the 26-student club before hitting the road with them and logging some miles.

Dixon’s visit was part of his Kids Marathon program. Students run over several weeks and those miles ultimately add up to 26.2 miles. The marathon program has the children running or walking three to four times per week for 8 to 10 weeks to log miles. HCS students meet once a week on Thursdays with fourth-grade teacher Elena Padolko and math teacher Brennan Glasgow.