By JOSHUA ROBINSON

For all of Meb Keflezighi’s preparation and strategizing, his bid to win the New York City Marathon almost came undone before he reached the starting line.

As he went to dress for the race Sunday in the athletes’ village at Fort Wadsworth, he found his singlet, sleeves and socks sopping wet because he had inadvertently laid them on a damp surface. No matter how well he understood his opponents or how fit he felt, starting the race in drenched gear would be a handicap.

But after some emergency drying — courtesy of race volunteers and giant heaters — Keflezighi was ready to put his strategy to work. And although he reaped the benefits of dry gear immediately, it took more than 23 miles of pounding the streets for Keflezighi’s game plan to pay off.

Other runners surged ahead at different points, but Keflezighi kept reminding himself to remain patient. If he could stay within 150 yards of the leaders, he figured, he could catch them later, on his own terms.

“It’s such a great field, you have to be careful when you make a move,” he said Monday in an interview. “So for the first hour, I was telling myself, ‘Almost fall asleep.’ ”

Before he won his first New York title in 2 hours 9 minutes 15 seconds, Keflezighi was familiar with the risks of pushing too hard at the front of the pack.

In 2002, he wore himself out on First Avenue, which starts at about Mile 16, and dropped from the lead to a ninth-place finish. In 2004, he took the lead around Mile 21 with a stitch in his side and faded in his fourth marathon in 13 months. A year later, he remained in a pack of three leaders until Mile 25, when his calves tightened and he settled for third place.

So on Sunday, he was happy to sit in the pack with another American, Ryan Hall, early on. But around Mile 9, Hall shifted up through the gears — one too many for Keflezighi’s liking. As he let Hall drift away, Keflezighi stayed determined to save his energy for Central Park.

In the meantime, Abderrahime Bouramdane of Morocco was threatening to pull away with his own solo assaults. Keflezighi, safely within the pack, just watched him go. The pack would reel Bouramdane back in, and the threat would vanish.

Even on First Avenue, when Bouramdane, Hendrick Ramaala, James Kwambai and Jackson Kipkoech broke away with Ramaala urging them to go faster still, Keflezighi looked on.

Everyone from his coach to his wife had warned him to stay back. Besides, with winds gusting up to 14 miles per hour, he saw little sense in exposing himself. Keflezighi was willing to spot the leaders 100 to 150 yards as long as he could stay there until they reached Central Park.

By the time they had looped through the Bronx and were heading down Fifth Avenue, Keflezighi was locked in a battle with only Robert Cheruiyot. With a few waves of the arm, Cheruiyot tried to make Keflezighi run in front, but Keflezighi refused.

“I was saying, ‘Let’s just get to that finish line,’ ” Keflezighi said he told Cheruiyot. “I didn’t have any obligation to do the work or lead.”

As they approached the park, the 5-foot-7-inch Keflezighi tucked in to draft behind the 6-3 Cheruiyot. But when they made two quick turns at 90th Street, Keflezighi was surprised to spot an opportunity for a move.

“He turned right, then left, and I didn’t think he was going to let me through,” said Keflezighi, who took a diagonal route straight through the corners. “But he let me through.”

If he had not pulled it off, Keflezighi said, he was going to try around the spot in the park, between Miles 24 and 25, where Ryan Shay collapsed during the Olympic trials in 2007.

“My intention was to go hard for 30 seconds, just to get away,” he said.

Instead, Keflezighi found himself running from the front in the last couple of miles, with an increasingly comfortable gap. He took a moment to honor Shay, making the sign of the cross, and several more moments to enjoy the final small bend before he broke the tape.

“Just to be able to extend the lead a little more and a little more,” Keflezighi said, “that gives you a little cushion towards the end to savor it.”