Kelvin Kiptum broke the men’s marathon record last week at the Chicago Marathon when he edged closer than anyone has ever been to breaking the two-hour mark in true race conditions.
He was wearing the latest iteration of Nike super shoes. They are a prototype not yet available via retail.
Adidas’ Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1 weighs only 138 grams.
Freakish Olympic distance runner Sifan Hassan won the women’s race also wearing the World Athletics-approved NikeDev163 prototype shoes. She ran the second-fastest-ever time.
When was the fastest time ever? I’m glad you asked. It was a week earlier at the Berlin Marathon when Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa broke the women’s world marathon record. She was wearing adidas’ new super shoes, the Adios Pro Evo 1.
Athletics now needs a pre-race red carpet: “Who are you wearing?”
Like the F1 constructors’ championship, marathon running has become as much about which footwear company wins as which athlete. It’s about the runners, not the runner, so to speak.
Kelvin Kiptum’s prototype Nike shoes.Credit: Getty Images
Consequently, when Kiptum broke the record, less was made of the fact that he is 23, only made his marathon debut 10 months ago, has only ever run three marathons but all three have been in the top-six times ever run, than gushing about his shoes. It could be down to Nike’s super shoes, or to him being a super talent. Most likely it’s both.
The previous world record holder Eliud Kipchoge ran under two hours for the marathon in an unofficial unsanctioned race with pacers helping him. He wore Nike when he did that and reimagined what was possible in marathon racing, training attention on shoes.
“This is the lightest racing shoe I have ever worn. The feeling of running in them is an incredible experience – like nothing I’ve felt before,” Assefa said, holding a pair of her adidas shoes.
Assefa’s shoes were not only light – they weight just 138 grams, which is 85g lighter than the previous iteration of adidas super shoe the Adios Pro 3 – they are disposable.
These are the shoes that are so targeted for elite performance that they are only good for one race. They will cost about $1000 a pair. That’s right, a grand for one race. Better make it a good one.
Charlotte Heidmann, senior global product manager at adidas, told Runners World the shoe is made for “one race – so one marathon – plus familiarisation time”. The companies are still in an arms – or foot – race for the best tech, but they also know time is counting down before there is a tightening of rules for shoes in competition.
The irony of adidas producing a disposable single-race shoe is that this is the same company that recently released a “sustainable shoe” line using recycled plastics gathered from beaches and the ocean.
Built-in obsolescence has long been a thing in manufacturing, but stating from the outset you are nearly tripling the price of the topline shoes and warning to only use them for a small fraction of the time other shoes are worn is next-level marketing genius.
The $1000 price tag for the shoes, assuming that is the price point when they are finally available for retail, is breathtaking for a single-race shoe. Most of the super shoes on the market now retail for between $360 and $400. Which is still quite a bit, but really, in distance running what else are you spending your money on? A watch? It’s not like cycling or golf with endless expensive gear.
On Sunday in the Melbourne Marathon, there is unlikely to be anyone wearing $1000 disposable adidas or prototype Nikes unless they are pro runners, but there will probably be many wearing the most expensive version of super shoe from any one of the top manufacturers.
And so they should, according to a former champion Australian distance runner.
Collis Birmingham thinks the new generation shoes help the weekend warrior as much, if not more than the elite runner.
Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa wins this year’s Berlin Marathon in a record women’s time.Credit: AP
Birmingham is well-credentialled to know. He is an Australian multiple Olympic and world championship 5000 and 10,000-metre runner, and now development coach with the Victorian Institute of Sport helping fast-track athletics coaches ahead of Brisbane 2032.
“I think they have a very good effect for the weekend warrior as well as the elite runner for the same sort of reason,” said Birmingham, who stressed he was speaking broadly about all latest tech shoes and not one brand in particular.
“There is always talk of ‘the wall’ in marathon running [fatigue and pain overwhelming runners about 10 kilometres from the end when they feel like they have run into a wall and can’t go further].
“Part of that is the weekend warrior cannot run enough miles in training to get through the fatigue from the impact of pounding on the road and these shoes do affect that impact and fatigue in training to let you improve your conditioning and then in the race to help you get through that wall.
“Without a doubt, the shoes are helping the recreational runner but elite runners are improving because of a number of things and the shoes are part of that but so is the training.
“With the elite runner I think there is definitely an advantage from them, but I feel marathon training improved out of sight even before the shoes and before the super shoes it was electrolytes and before that ice baths that changed the way we trained and times came down.”
