Ryan Hall-- Nice Job Helping Meb Win; Rojo - Nice Reporting

Robert,

I almost never post anymore... but had to come on today. I can't stand the whole "we spend time and money" as if you're doing charity work. Letsrun is your business and how you make a living. Don't make it seem like you're doing us a favor by going to Boston and interviewing the elite field. That draws eyeballs and ad revenue. Its not out of the kindness of your heart.

Nothing wrong with that either. We are great beneficiaries of your and Weldon's entrepreneurial spirit, not your generosity. But you would lose eyeballs if you didn't offer great content and that's why you do it. Don't pretend its for any other reason. Its time Letsrun grow up a bit and start acting more like a business than a side project that you 2 began after the list servs and whatnot were killed by the internet.

Just food for thought.

rojo wrote:.

...

Meb is the victory, but noone does anything alone. You don't think Bob Larsen deserves credit? Meb's wife?

Ha ha ... Rojo, you're starting to sound like President Obama now. :)

rojo wrote:

Giddy wrote:

Nice reporting? If this were a gossip column. You'd have to have Ryan Hall quote it, then you'd have to get Meb's reaction to it and then maybe you'd have a story.

Give Meb all the credit, not most of it.

There soon will be 10,000+ people on facebook that disagree with you. The story has gone viral and might get 100,000 views today.

Meb is the victory, but noone does anything alone. You don't think Bob Larsen deserves credit? Meb's wife?

Do those people take any credit for the loss?

I don't deny that it's a feel good story, I just think the level of importance the part they "played" is a bit over played.

Every race ever run can be scrutinized by adding the small moves and sub plots up. At the end of the day, you're trying to add drama to the screen play for clicks and views.

+1

I'm wondering if any journalists for Sports Illustrated complained about going to the Super Bowl and interviewing the best players... what a crummy job.

rojo wrote:

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American ingenuity at its finest on Patriots day.

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barf... (and ignores the fact that other countries have done this for decades in races).

Sure maybe Hall has some effect but it's also just as likely as the non-American chase pack though that Meb's 2:23 in NYC was where he was now

As a few others have pointed out, the reason a story like this is believable is because NONE of the other elite Americans had delusional thoughts that they could win the race themselves. There literally was 0% chance that any American not named Hall or Keflezghi was going to win yesterday. There were just too many elite Africans in the race for that to happen.

So that said, what is the difference to a guy with a 2:12 PR, (currently running at a PR 2:10 pace up to 15k) in running a 5k segment in 15:40 instead of 15:25 or whatever he "might" have felt like running at that point in the race? Those Americans were already going a perfect pace to target a PR, any unnecessary move to lower the pace further and allow the Africans to draft off them would have made no sense to their individual race plan. The fact that that also was a small aid to Meb in his growing of a minute+ lead is a nice added bonus. The US guys didn't slow the race down, they just assisted in prolonging the inevitable move that everyone knew the Africans would eventually make.

I know personally, I 100% would be on board with helping in the small way the US guys did. It had no negative effect at all on their total finishes (look at how many PRd or nearly did) while at the same time, helped a fellow countryman win America's #1 marathon.

Like I said at the start, those US guys were smart enough to know they weren't going to win. They were rewarded with great times, an American victory, and a small piece of the overall story that included themselves.

If Hall wins and Meb runs 2:17, can you imagine the absurdity of a story that Meb helped him win?

Mall of America wrote:

If Hall wins and Meb runs 2:17, can you imagine the absurdity of a story that Meb helped him win?

No? What would be absurd about it?

Does everybody remember Meb finishing up NY2013 in 2:23 with that guy? Remember that? Well I do. That was one of several examples of his leadership. Athens 2nd. Olympic Trials hip fracture recovery. NY2009. Sayonara Nike. Hello Skechers. Can do. Run to Overcome. Olympic Trials, London 4th. Boston2014. Meb earned the other Americans' respect. The esteemed champion. 24 minutes into Boston it was clear to me that his technique timing was spot on. At 55 minutes I knew he was going to win. He had the snappyiest tempo in the pack and his trunk-steps timing was perfect.Hall and Abdi could no doubt sense that it was Meb's day. And they all knew that it was America's day. A day to inspire America. An Olympic kind of day. A day athletes dream about...not far away in an Olympic venue, but right here on American soil. In Boston. On Patriot's Day. Well done, brothers Johnson. Great reporting. 

Ackley wrote:

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2014/04/untold-story-american-teamwork-ryan-hall-helped-meb-keflezighi-win-boston/

In case some people only read the message board without reading other parts of this site, this is nice reporting by Rojo. He interviewed the Americans in the lead pack who told the story of how Ryan Hall held the other Americans back when the Africans slowed and some of the Americans wanted to push the pace. This allowed Meb to build what turned out to be an insurmountable lead.

Basic_stuff wrote:

More likely, Ryan knew he wasn't going to have a good race partway through, so when the other Americans wanted to make a move, Ryan covered it up with "tactics."

I can't go that far. Saying that he was covering up a poor performance by helping Meb isn't really what happened. I think Ryan Hall has WAY more integrity than that. Sometimes in a race, in LIFE, we have a goal, and when it becomes clear that that goal is unattainable, we set a new goal and try to attain that. I think this is what happened with Hall here. I think there's a LITTLE too much importance being placed on the pace of that group of Americans. Their pace was NOT holding those Africans back from making a charge, but it makes Hall and some of those other Americans in that group feel good to think so. Most people like to be helpful when they can be.

In this case, I think Meb just helped himself...helped himself to the title!

Flagpole wrote:

[quote]Basic_stuff wrote:

More likely, Ryan knew he wasn't going to have a good race partway through, so when the other Americans wanted to make a move, Ryan covered it up with "tactics."

I can't go that far. Saying that he was covering up a poor performance by helping Meb isn't really what happened. I think Ryan Hall has WAY more integrity than that. Sometimes in a race, in LIFE, we have a goal, and when it becomes clear that that goal is unattainable, we set a new goal and try to attain that. I think this is what happened with Hall here.

That's an interesting thought. Sometimes people don't understand themselves. I know I don't, I'm complicated even for me.

rojo wrote:

PPS. Also at these meets, I go out of may way to get the story of the top Kenyan and African runners. Do other websites even put up interviews or feature foreigners? Not really. We do. We cover the elite side of the sport.

"After the race, tracking down anyone who wasn’t in the top 3 in Boston is less than easy. Because the LRC audience is comprised of hard-core American fans, I scoured the hotel lobby for any and all elite American men not named Meb that I could fine."

Rojo how much did you fine the elite American men for helping Meb win?

Is that why you are so cranky?

Rojo, you've said so many assinine things in this thread it's hard to know where to start. I generally dont criticize you or how you run your business but I'm making an exception in this case; I'm as white as white can get and I dont like the race card being played but after reading your rational about why Hall and the other Americans deserve some credit for MEBS WIN!!!!! I can only conclude that you are in fact racist or not thinking before you try to create a story like you just admitted you did;

"We were thrilled but wanted to share insight you'd only get from coming to Letsrun.com and that we'd only get from spending a lot of time and money to be on the ground in Boston"

Share Letsrun insight? Please get over yourself. The story didn't need any of your insight. The story had all kinds on magic on it's own merit without you trying to STEAL the credit from the true and only male winner and giving it to Hall.

Rojo you would have done better to realise your mistake and stfu rather than expose yourself further in your true agenda.

Thanks for the insight you can only get from Letsrun. The only insight America and the BM doesn't need.

One more thing. I'd like to hear what Ryan Hall has to say about this. Did he in fact tell his fellow Americans to stand down? Did Hall admit to this already? If he did and this isn't some letsrun fabrication, like it appears, then I'll be wishing that Ryan Hall never wins another race as long as he lives.

Pole:

I do not get your anger. Rojo went to speak to guys that 99.9% of the media covering Boston would not recognize. They told him the story and he reported it. When I started the thread, I said it was great reporting because he reported a story that was interesting and would likely not have been reported anywhere else.

-Ackley

I think people are getting too worked up about this story and the brojos' reporting of it. It's important not to take anything too seriously when visiting LRC. View it mostly as satire.

Thank you spokesperson for Rojo. I totally disagree. It wasn't an interesting story at all. It was a story that should have never been told. Everyone else except Letsrun seemed to recognize that fact. A real blemish on an amazing day.

It's probably not nearly as conniving as you make it out to be. It probably had two intentions, neither of which were as premeditated as you tend to assume:

a) To show another dimension of the race that will generally be overlooked by general viewing public, but which may be interesting to running fans. Everyone in the press wants a different scoop or angle, and given the the attention paid to the race elsewhere, this was one way to grab that scoop.

b) To further underscore how monumental the day was by contextualizing Meb's victory in what some would like to view as a great day for 'America' and 'American' running. Indeed, one might take contention with the fact that others are given a piece of the victory pie, but usually such an attempt at collective pride is not meant to be derogatory, but is predicated on good sentiments. I have a hard to imagining Meb saying, "Hell no, that was allll me, baby!" Such a gracious guy as he is, I expect that he would give credit where credit is due, and even some where it isn't.

It would be a shame if it was remembered as 'Hall's day of virtuousness' instead of Meb's inspiring struggle for victory. However, it seems nice enough that people might remember the day Meb won Boston, and, as an aside, also remember that his fellow runners, with whom he has competed in good sportsmanship for years(!), were equally inspired by his guts and did everything they could to support him.

Probably should have waited a week to let Meb get more attention, though.

Poor Brojos, how people CALL THEM RACIST when all they do is allow nonstop white supremacist threads and posts on this board. How unfair!

Rojo, if you don't want to be called racist why don't you try taking seriously his appalling the things you allow on this board are. A decent anti-racist would put in measures to minimize and do their best to stop threads like "black chimps do etc." and the endless stuff we see on here. People think you're racist because you seem to revel in or at least passively support racism. Don't whine when you get tagged with your own actions.