Ryan Hall knew early he wasn't going to win the Boston Marathon (presumably, or else he would have went with Meb and fellow American Josphat Boit) or even come in a respectable place so he sought to accomplish the next best thing: an American victory.

According to letsrun, Hall engineered a plan to lull the African chase pack and secure Meb Keflezighi the win, the first by an American in over 30 years. When the 38 year old Eritrean turned American known as "Meb" and Boit put over a minute on the field before the halfway point, the African runners with more substantial PRs (Meb had never broken 2:09 while many of them had run 2:06 or faster) believed both would come back to them and that they were still competing amongst themselves for the win. Meb was not considered a favorite before the race.

But Ryan Hall, who finished fourth at Boston in 2011 with a wind-aided 2:04:58, either knew more about Meb's training than most or just wanted to give him a chance. He urged other Americans in the chase pack (not expecting to win but anxious to hit their own time goals) NOT to push the slow pace so that by the time the Africans did, it would be too late to catch Meb. That's exactly what happened. Second place finisher Wilson Chebet (2:05:27 PR) finished just 11 seconds too late.

One of the conspirators, American Nick Arciniagao (2:11:57, PR by seven seconds, seventh place) explained to letsrun the gist of Hall's plan:

Meb got ahead early on - before 15k even - him and JB (Josphat Boit) took off. I was in the lead pack with all of the other Americans and all of the Africans and about 15k to 20k, Ryan Hall and I were running side by side, in front of the lead pack but not really pushing it, and Ryan just kept turning over to me, talking (to me and saying), 'Hey don't push the pace. If they want to let those guys go, they are going to have work to catch back up to them. We are not going to help them out with that at all.  If we want an American to win, this is how it's going to be done.'

From then on, the game plan between myself and Ryan and we told Abdi and few of the other guys as well , 'We're trying to get an American to win this race. That's one of the biggest goals for today.' Basically the Africans would have to do all the work to catch them.'

And it turned out perfectly, obviously.

It's a small (impact) but it was just enough (for Meb to get the win).

In a way, I'm against the move. Fortunately, it didn't seem to affect (and maybe even benefited) the American runners, almost all of whom ran PRs. Maybe, however, they lost a few seconds or more because of it. If it was me, I wouldn't trade a second so my countryman could win, even if he was as likeable as Meb seems to be. The Boston Marathon isn't the Olympics. Country affiliation should matter only to the fans. 

The strategy also highlights the sometimes strange nature of distance running. If just one of the Africans would have gone with Meb, all of them would have. Then, one of them -- and not Meb -- might have won. (To be fair to Meb, he looked pretty good at the end and might not have even needed Hall's help.) But they decided the pace wasn't worth the risk of crashing and finishing outside the top five or so. If only Steve Prefontaine was still alive.