Davenport, IA—The great American marathoner Bill Rodgers has run the Quad City Times Bix 7 road race every year since 1980. 1984 Women’s Olympic Marathon champion Joan Benoit Samuelson has joined Bill every year since 1983. There are bronze statues of Bill and Joan at the Quad City Times Plaza along the Mississippi River. That’s how impactful these two great athletes have been for this classic American summer road race.
Now 77, Rodgers says the Bix 7 course is the most challenging of any major road race in the country. Beginning on Brady Street in downtown Davenport, the course immediately ascends the infamous Brady Street Hill, whose incline of 7% – 9% is contested on Thursday night of Bix week at the popular Brady Street Sprints.
Top collegiate athletes come home to the Quad Cities to run the Bix and the street sprints. Young men who easily break 50 seconds for 400m on the track can’t break 60 seconds on Brady Street Hill. Generally, there’s a 20% – 25% difference between their track 400m PR and their time on the hill.

For the full road race on Saturday morning, the average first mile split for the professional men is anywhere from 5:05 to 5:20. That gives you an indication of how stern a test this course presents.
Last year, however, winner Wesley Kiptoo, a 2022 graduate of Iowa State University, blazed up Brady Street in 4:46, and then after taking the right-hand turn onto Kirkwood Boulevard for the majority of the out-and-back course, he blitzed the second downhill mile in 4:06. That’s the roller coaster nature of this layout along the Mississippi River—never a flat spot. You’re either going up or going down.

Over the years, there have only been three men who have gone under 32 minutes on this course. In 1994, Kenya’s Benson Masya ran 31:56. Four years later, Kenya’s John Korir (not the one who won the Boston Marathon this year, but still one of the great road racers in history and a five-time Bix champion) battled countryman Mark Yatich to the line.
Korir stopped the clock at 31:51.99. Yatich was clocked at 31:52.00, 1/100th of a second later. That record has stood the test of time and the best road runners of the following generation, including those wearing super shoes.
Last year, Wesley Kiptoo finished in 32:27. It was the fastest winning time since 2013 when Leonard Korir of Kenya ran 32:15.
But so much of the Bix 7 race is weather dependent. The year that John Korir set the course record, it was 62°F at the start with 70% humidity. Most years the weather is at least 10° warmer with higher humidity, and it makes all the difference in the world.
Tomorrow, there is a 40% chance of thunderstorms at the 8 am start, with the temperature around 74°. Not a day for records.
The women’s course record is held by Kenya’s Mary Keitany, the four-time New York City Marathon champion. In 2016, she ran 35:20, 5:03 per mile pace over this very hilly Bix 7 course.
There have only been five women to break 36 minutes on the Bix 7 layout, the last one being Fiona O’Keeffe from the United States, winning the race in 2022 in 35:58.
Both defending champions have returned in 2025 for the 51st running of this American road race classic. Rachel Chebet was the first Ugandan women’s champion last year, taking the title in 36:11. She comes into the Bix 7 off a fourth-place finish at last weekend’s Utica Boilermaker 15K and a 9th place at the July 4th Peachtree 10K in Atlanta.
Wesley Kiptoo enters the Bix 7 after finishing third at last weekend’s Utica Boilermaker 15K, running 43:13—the same finishing time that earned him third place in Utica last year, as well.
I asked Kiptoo whether he was going to go out hard this year like he did last year, and he said, “maybe something similar.”
After 2 miles last year, he had a 26-second lead. He finished with a margin of 16 seconds as the runners behind him raced hard for second position.
Six of the top 10 men from last year return to the Bix this year, along with three of the top 10 women. There’s an added $1000 bonus for a course record from either division, but I don’t expect that bonus to be paid, given the conditions. You can catch all the action live streaming on KWQC.com beginning at 7:30 Central time for the preview show and 8 AM for the start of the Bix race.