The Fast 5K is a road race opportunity for elite men and women over a flat, fast, secure route. Only 30 competitors will take place in each of the men’s and women’s categories due to Covid-19 restrictions.

Laura Weightman, the 2018 Commonwealth Games 5,000m bronze medallist, is set to feature in the women's race.

Great Britain's Callum Hawkins is in action in the men's event and is using it as training in the build up to the World Half Marathon Championships which will be streamed on the BBC on 17 October.

Image source, Getty Images

Laura Weightman has had a good season, according to her coach, former GB Olympian and world record holder Steve Cram, and that is despite the disruption that the coronavirus pandemic has caused to sports worldwide.

“Everyone’s had to deal with it in their own way,” Cram told BBC Sport. “We tried to be very pragmatic initially, thinking there might not be any races at all, but if there are, then let’s be ready.”

The season was a slow build, culminating in Weightman’s personal best of 14min 35.44 seconds for the 5,000m in Monaco in August. “In the early part of lockdown, I couldn’t see Laura, she couldn’t go to physio, she couldn’t go altitude training,” said Cram.

“Those are all the things you’d normally be doing in March-April-May. But for distance runners it hasn’t been so difficult, you can still do your mileage, perhaps not a lot of the quality stuff that you’d normally do, but it wasn’t such a hindrance.

“Then we heard that Monaco was going to happen so we started to target that – and then everything has flowed on from that.” Weightman is now ranked World No.9 in the women’s 5,000m and is close to breaking the four-minute barrier for the 1500m.

GB middle-distance legend and BBC commentator Steve Cram has been instrumental in putting the Fast 5k meet together at the end of a season he says has been “interesting”, despite the pandemic cancelling or postponing almost every event scheduled for 2020 including the Tokyo Olympics.

The fact that plans had to be torn up was a help, he says. “You take away that timetable and people have the freedom to race without any restrictions and just think ‘Hey, I’m just going to go for it and see how fit I am, how hard I can go, how fast I can run’.

Without ranking points from the major events on offer, athletes have nothing to lose, says Cram, giving them a chance to try new things without having to train for whatever major championships are being held that season.

“I put my hand up and said I’ll see if I can organise something,” said Cram, recalling a mid-season meeting with coaches. “And it grew from there. Event organisers like ourselves have become a mini-version of events like the London Marathon.

“Putting on events is not a commercial exercise at all – quite the opposite, in fact - it costs you money to do it! But that’s okay, because I was keen that we give some of the athletes a chance to compete.”

Laura Weightman has a chance to beat Paula Radcliffe's long-standing 5,000m road times at a motor racing track in Wigan.

You can watch live coverage of the men’s and women’s Fast 5k events on the BBC Sport website & app and BBC iPlayer.

Monday, 5 October

18:00–19:00 BST - Fask 5k

BBC Sport

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