The shoe Kelvin Kiptum wore to run 2:00:35 in Chicago went on sale in January 2024. Here’s a look at what’s new and how it’s performing for us.
If you’ve studied the lead pack at any major marathon, you’ll have noticed one obvious trend: Nike-sponsored elite runners not named Eliud Kipchoge all tend to lace up the latest Nike Vaporfly when racing 26.2 miles. On the American side, Conner Mantz is an AF loyalist . Farther back, it’s a mix.But, this ratio of Vaporfly among the fastest runners is curious, given the fact that the Alphafly was specifically designed to be a superior long-distance road racing shoe.
Schoolmeester was tight-lipped about what exactly Nike doing with the foam process, saying “I can’t go into massive detail it’s a little proprietary,” but here’s what we gathered. Nike appears to be working with different geometries of the preform—the plastic base material that gets expanded into a shoe-shaped midsole. But, to optimize it, Schoolmeester hinted that they’re trying to not compress the foam.