Schlau, Annan poised to break state record at Kiawah

For most of his 25+ years of running road races in Charleston, Bob Schlau has been the most consistently dominant runner in the Lowcountry and never really had much local competition in his age group. Now, at age 56, he does. Steve Annan, 57, of Mount Pleasant, has set pending state age group records (55-59) this fall in both the 5K and 10K with times of 16 minutes, 50 seconds at Turkey Day on Thanksgiving Day and 36:27 at Run for Sight 10K in Mullins on Sept. 27, respectively. In both cases, Annan beat times set by Schlau since he turned 55 in September 2002. And on Turkey Day, Annan beat Schlau by 40 seconds in one of their few head-to-head matchups this year. The next matchup comes this Saturday at the Kiawah Island Half Marathon. But this one may tilt in favor of Schlau, who last year set a state age group record at the Kiawah Marathon with a time of 2:56:17 for the 26.2-mile race. Schlau has been training for the half marathon, not for 5Ks, while Annan -- a math teacher and an assistant cross-country coach at Wando High School -- has focused on shorter distances. Meanwhile, Annan is coming off what he considered a disappointing performance at Saturday's USATF National Cross-Country meet in Greensboro, N.C., where he finished third in his age group with a 10K time of 39:40. Schlau stayed closer to home and won the masters division of Saturday's Reindeer Run 5K with a time of 17:36. Annan said his legs did not feel "fresh" at the meet and plans to take this week off to rest up for the half. Both men said they have set personal goals for the half. Schlau would like to break 1:20, while Annan is aiming to for a 1:22, if he feels good in the first few miles. (Those times call for an average pace of just over 6-minutes per mile.) The state age group record of 1:23:35 was set by Gerry Carner at the Governor's Cup Half Marathon in October 1998. So this one's ripe for breaking. "I think it will be an interesting race," said Schlau. "Right now, he (Annan) is clearly running better at the shorter distances ... I know I'm better prepared to be competitive in a half marathon than a 5K." Annan said he doesn't feel like he's competing against Schlau. "If he took this seriously, I'm sure he'd just kill me," he said of Schlau, who has been bitten by the golfing bug. "I'm not in his league." One interesting tidbit. Annan's son Jason and Schlau's son Scott ran on the same cross-country team at Wando High School in the mid-1990s. KIAWAH FACTOID Perhaps the most interesting tidbit about this Saturday's Kiawah Island event, which features a marathon, half marathon and 5K, is that there are more North Carolinians signed up for it than South Carolinians. Race Director Dylan Jones noted that of the nearly 3,000 signed up, 1,500 are from North Carolina, or about 100 more than the total number of South Carolinians. He speculated it was because the large numbers of Leukemia Society Team in Training groups coming in from the Tar Heel state. In all, 43 states will be represented at the starting line on Saturday.

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