The people on this cross country starting line don't belong to teams. They're simply taking advantage of an open race at a cross country meet. Colorado Track XC file photo.

To be perfectly honest, this article doesn't hold much of direct interest for the high school cross country runner. It should, however, hold a lot of interest for parents of high school cross country runners and coaches/meet directors.

My mind got to thinking when a friend (and cross country parent) at church walked up to me and engaged me in a conversation about his new health insurance plan at work.

The gist of the conversation was that in order to get a discount of up to $50 per month on his health insurance (more if his wife gets involved, too), he needed to be able to document some healthy activities. Like real exercise. The kicker is that his insurer seems to prefer public exercise opportunities--bicycle tours, local 5Ks, and the like. The insurance program at my own school has been working on similar sorts of ideas.

The idea behind this is obvious. So far as health is concerned, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If you can nudge a significant number of the individuals in the pool for whom you provide health insurance into healthier lifestyles, you can substantially reduce your payouts as an insurer. And those reduced costs eventually interest us, the insured, when our rates go down--or at least climb at a less precipitous rate. If this model hasn't arrived in your family's health insurance policy, it's likely to do so soon.

The trouble is, your local 5K typically costs somewhere around $25 to enter. For that you get to run in a race, have your name recorded in the results--both cumulative and broken down into age groups, and you get to add a t-shirt to that growing pile in your closet.

There's nothing wrong with running in the local 5K, but if you run enough of them to earn the insurance discount, you'll probably spend more money in race entry fees than you will save on your health insurance.

But that would be exactly where the local high school cross country meet comes into play. You need (or at least desire) an inexpensive means of getting enough documented exercise activity for an insurance discount. High school athletic programs are perpetually short on cash. These are two ideas that can come together!

Many high school cross country meets already have open or citizens' races. If demand increases, many more meets would be willing to add open races to their events. And, these open races could be both an effective means of adding funds to a cross country program and an effective means for many adults to get documented public exercise activity they can apply toward health insurance discounts.

I've paid as much as $10 to run in an open race at a cross country meet. I've run in a couple for free, but that's probably because I'm a coach and coaches tend to watch out for their own a little. A $10 entry fee may teeter on the edge of being cost effective for the consumer. $5 certainly would be cost effective for most consumers with the new model of health insurance plan.

You may wonder why the insurance companies like having you join highly public activities like races. I've wondered that myself.

I've wondered why the cross country coach at The Classical Academy--certainly one of the most fit employees on the entire staff of a few hundred people--has to join Zumba classes with the ladies in order to earn points for his insurance discount. To be honest with you, I've chafed a little at that expectation. I don't have time to do Zumba with the female staff members who think that sort of thing is fun. Moreover, I wouldn't gain as much in the way of health benefits from it as most of the people doing it. I do sincerely apologize if that comes off as arrogant, but it's simply the truth of the matter. I already run at least 45 minutes a day, on average, in practice. I'll burn a lot more calories, keep off a lot more weight, and build a lot more cardiovascular endurance doing that than Zumba. Period.

And, frankly, the women really don't want me at their Zumba sessions in the first place. Something about the sanctity of girl time....

So, why doesn't running cross country and track practice with a bunch of teenagers count?! It doesn't count because there is a very limited number of people who will continue to exercise on those terms. I do it because it thrills me to the core of my being to see what happens in kids hearts, attitudes, and wills when an adult makes that sort of investment in their lives. If everyone had the same motivations, we'd never find enough athletes to spread out among all the willing coaches.

The insurance companies, bless their hearts, are looking for means of getting large numbers of people to start exercising regularly and then, once started, to continue exercising. I suspect bicycle tours and races probably hold more lasting appeal for most folks than throwing on a short and singlet at the end of your work day and trying to keep up with a bunch of people who are one-third your age and way faster than you are. I don't necessarily like that, and I think there's maybe a hint of discrimination involved in that, but I get it. You need to do what works for most people, not what works for those who march to the beat of odd drummers.

For this little window of opportunity to work for high school cross country programs to work, a couple of things will have to happen. One, meet directors will need to record and publish results for their open races. Colorado Track XC can handle the publishing. If I get open race results from a high school cross country meet, I will publish same (I will not, however, start keeping masters rankings for 5K cross country times ). I will publish them in their own category on the meet pages. You can chuckle at, or be inspired by, how fast the father of your son's top rival ran the course at last weekend's meet.

Another thing that will have to be taken into consideration is that the time required to complete an open 5K will be at least as long as, and probably longer than, the time required to complete a high school JV race. This has the potential to be a little bit of a headache for meet directors.

Adults, that means that if a high school cross country race opens a division for you, you need to exercise some consideration in the opportunity that is given to you. People's time is precious and meet volunteers are typically hard to come by. This is probably not a good time to take a leisurely stroll through a 5K course nor a good time to grinch about it if the course is shut down after some pre-specified interval of time. On the other hand, if the meet director says there is a 60-minute window to finish, go for that leisurely stroll if you wish!

And, yes, you'll probably have to sign a waiver.

This can be a win-win situation for both sides. In today's economy, that's good news. I hope to see a few more meets opening up citizen's races this fall. Somehow, I think the health insurance companies would be happy about that as well. And, it might do some families some real benefit for a son or daughter to see Mom and Dad putting on the running shoes and tackling the same course the high school kids are contending with.

Just a thought. Batter and fry me in the comments section if this isn't a good idea.