(Set to Don McLean’s tune Vincent)

 

Sub Two-Hour Man,

With your pacers in their split array,

Gazing out upon a misty day,

As they lead you toward a time beyond the pale,

*

Lasers on the road,

Markers for your rhythmic skills,

While wearing Vaporflys not espadrilles,

With soles that flex the carbon beneath your stride,

How easily you glide,

*

Before crowds along the tree-lined way,

An addition from that Monza day,

Stand anxious in Vienna’s autumn chill,

*

Now I think I know,

What you tried to do for me,

And how you were ridiculed for your audacity,

And how you tried to just let it be,

Skeptics would not listen, we did not know how,

Perhaps we’ll listen now.

*

Sub Two-Hour Man,

In constant pace that tells a tale,

Of a historic chase for a running grail,

As you peer out from eyes of burnished brown,

The time it did tick down.

*

Four thirty-four point eight per mile,

A speed that’s hard to reconcile,

For those who remembered a high school time,

Yet to you ‘twas so sublime.

*

Through morning hours past leaves that fell,

A yearning heart with a truth to tell,

Beating strong within the runner’s thin/clad frame.

*

Now I understand,

What you tried to do before,

And how you never closed the door,

Not all in Monza were on your side,

Perhaps today they’ll be satisfied.

*

For when your goal was finally there in sight,

On that misty autumnal morn,

You dropped your pacers as winners always do,

But I could have told you, Eliud,

Sub-2 was only meant for one

as beautiful as you.

*

Sub Two-Hour Man,

Records kept in dusty halls,

Monumental marks on plaque strewn walls,

With eyes that watched the sport and can’t forget,

Like those champions that you’ve met.

*

The whip-thin man in INEOS clothes,

Whose furrowed brow hid a joy that knows,

What no other man has ever done before,

You have broken down the door.

*

Now I think I see,

What you tried to do for me,

And how you ran into history,

To inspire us all to just be free,

We never understood till now,

All that’s left to left to say is – WOW!

END