I’ve been playing about with Supershoes to see which I’d run London in this year.
The 4 shoes are:
NIke Vaporfly3 , Nike Alphafly3, Asics Metaspeed Paris +, Adidas Adios Pro4.
I loved the Vaporfly’s when they first came out, running Berlin & Rotterdam in them and went back to them for London in 2022. Then came the Alphafly – which I used for London virtual 2021, Boston 2023 & Valencia 2023. I was curious about the Asics and the Adidas Pro4 and wanted to wean myself away from Nike. I’m still not quite decided but this is where I’m currently at
Nike Vaporfly3 – Great for distances up to the half. The 3 is different to the 2, I’ve found it feels dead for me once I get to over 28k (or 2 hours ish of running). Definitely a shoe I like running in and a great training shoe
Nike Alphafly3 – Really cushioned, supportive and an out and out marathon shoe. My only concern – it doesn’t always get on with my left big toe. The aggressiveness of the plate into your inside midfoot-arch has settled down with the move from the 2 to the 3. The other improvement has been the woven upper, softening around the big toes making it less likely (although not completely gone) to create toebed blisters. A shame as it’s a good shoe to run in
Asics Metaspeed Paris + A shoe that got a lot of attention and love when it came out. Unlike the Nike shoes it’s pretty stiff for the first few runs, then the foam softens up. Incredibly light – it doesn’t give me the confidence I would want in a marathon shoe and see this as very much a Vaporfly competitor. Some more stack height & slightly softer foam would change this for me – but to be fair this hasn’t caused me any problems on longer runs.
Adidas Adios Pro4. A marathon shoe. I’ve run in this twice, it just feels too unstable at fast speeds (ie 10k down), whereas when you get it into marathon pace it is really happy. The combination of the foam, rods, stack height all lead it to being very much built for the marathon. The only downside for me was a toe-bed blister on my right foot, after the first marathon test session I ran (7 x 2k on / 1k float). Which was a shame. However I had no problems from the speed workout so I’m veering towards this for London
