Two big factors dictate if course record is possible for the Quad-City Times Bix 7

The Premier Illinois Iowa Buick GMC Dealers have decided to give an extra $1,000 to any runner who can traverse the challenging 7-mile trek through the streets of Davenport faster than anyone ever has done it before.

The old adage is that records are made to be broken.

But a lot of things need to align perfectly for it to happen.

The Bix 7 men’s record has stood for 27 years and no one has come within 21 seconds of it during that span. The nine fastest times in Bix history all were run during a six-year stretch in the 1990s.

Kenya’s Wesley Kiptoo last year left the entire field in his wake within the first two miles and recorded the best winning time in 11 years: 32 minutes, 27 seconds. But he still was 35 seconds off the 1998 record set by John Korir.

Rachel Chebet of Uganda was equally impressive, registering the 10th best women’s time in Bix 7 history. But her clocking of 36:11 was 53 seconds off Mary Keitany’s 2016 standard.

Women’s times have been much faster in recent times than they were 30 years ago with seven of the top 10 times being run in the past decade.

There are two factors that have led to almost all of the really fast times in the Bix 7’s annals: There must be competition with two or more runners pushing each other to go extremely fast. And the weather conditions generally must be more moderate than they normally are on the last weekend in July.

There is no question that the competition aspect helped produce the best men’s time ever. Three runners from Kenya — Korir, Mark Yatich and Ondoro Osoro — staged a scintillating battle in 1998 that brought out the best in all of them.

Osoro actually led for much of the race, the three runners were almost side-by-side coming down the final hill and Yatich opened a 20-yard lead after turning the corner onto Third Street. Korir then caught him with an astonishing final kick.

Yatich crossed in 31:52 and Korir leaned forward enough to be credited with the slightly better time of 31:51.99. Osoro’s time of 32:00 remains the fourth fastest time in Bix history.

Korir won again the following year, but he didn’t have anyone pushing him then. He didn’t have a rabbit like Osoro to help set a faster pace. As a result, his winning time was 67 seconds slower than it was in 1998.

“John Korir was a great runner,’’ said Toni Reavis, a veteran road racing journalist who has served as an analyst for the Bix 7 television broadcasts since 1992. “Korir was one of the great road runners of all time and (in that 1998 race) he was pushed.’’

There have been similar scenarios on the women’s side. When Keitany ran her record time of 35:18 in 2016, Caroline Chepkoech was only two seconds behind her. The third and fourth best women’s times both came in the 2004 race and the eighth, ninth and 10th fastest times all occurred in 2019.

Elite athlete coordinator John Tope said he thought Kiptoo could have threatened the men’s record last year if he had someone to push him. Two miles into the race, the former Iowa State star had built a 26-second lead on his nearest pursuer but there was no need to really exert himself in the final miles. He ended up winning by 16 seconds.

“He went out and attacked hard,’’ Reavis said. “If he keeps going, he has the possibility of running that fast. But that’s a record that has stood for a long, long time.’’

He said that if there had been bonus prize money last year, it might have motivated Kiptoo to maintain his blistering pace even without having another runner to push him.

But the runners all agree that there is no substitute for having multiple runners forcing the pace.

“That’s a good idea because we help each other and that makes it easy,’’ said Teshome Mekonen, who has two top-10 Bix finishes to his credit and will be aiming for one more Saturday.

As for the weather factor, it was 62 degrees at the outset of that 1998 race that produced the Korir-Yatich-Osoro duel. That’s the third lowest temperature in Bix history. The humidity of 70% also was the third lowest ever.

In 2004, when Susan Chepkemei out-sprinted Constantina Tomescu-Dita to break the women’s course record, it was 61 degrees with 72% humidity.

It was a little warmer when Keitany topped Chepkemei’s mark in 2016, but it was still only 72 degrees at race time.

That is something that Reavis said is “the luck of the draw’’ and it is what could prevent a record from being set this year.

The weather is expected to be quite steamy for Saturday’s race although Chebet took a look at some overcast skies Thursday and actually liked what she saw.

“The conditions are better (than last year) because there’s not too much sun …’’ she said. “I do not know how the weather will be Saturday, though.’’

Those conditions could go a long way toward determining if anyone has a realistic shot at that $1,000.

“You’ve got to get lucky there,’’ Reavis added. “It’s a squirrelly thing to get the right athletes and the right weather together at the same time.’’