If you're a regular listener to listening in, you know that I sometimes close my conversations

here with a question that sounds sort of like this. How do you want to be remembered? Or what legacy

do you want to leave behind? Robert Wogameth has thought deeply about these questions,

and he's come to the conclusion that finishing well, running faithfully the last lap of life,

the lap that he calls the gun lap, is an important part of the answer to those questions. He got the idea from a fellow graduate

of Taylor University. I was a senior in college. He was a sophomore. And during my senior year,

especially toward the end, we'd come in like really late from being out, whatever seniors in college do.

And here's this lone figure running on abandoned country roads in North Central Indiana. I'm

thinking, who in the world? What is that? Well, he was getting up in the morning. I was

finishing my day. And there was a kid named Ralph Foote. He was a sophomore

Taylor and he was running from a small farm town in Indiana and he figured he could run. And he

ran and he ran and he ran. And so it came time for the conference track meet. I had finished my

finals and was getting ready to graduate from Taylor and George Glass,

who was the track coach, said, hey, we're hosting the conference meet. We need some volunteers.

I said, man, count me in. So I volunteered, you know, raked the pits for the high jump and the

Paul vault and so forth. But then it was time for the two mile and I didn't have an assignment so I crawled to the top of the tower

and watched an amazing race I'll never forget it I write about it and this is the first time I heard of the gun lab

it's a two mile around a quarter mile track so when the race starts the starter raises his hand

fires a gun and the race is on.

But when Ralph started and he was leading, his eighth lap, which was his last lap, the starter fired the gun again.

And I said to somebody who was there, I said, what was that?

He said, well, that's the lead runner's last lap.

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