Adidas Broke the Marathon Record Everyone Wanted… Twice

What You Need To Know

London Earned its (Three) Stripes

It’s happened. It’s really happened. The two-hour barrier has been broken — legally and for real this time. Plenty of people have written about how it might not happen in our lifetimes, and I’ll admit I didn’t think it would come so soon, but that’s the magic of the marathon for you. Just one year after the hottest London Marathon in recent memory, everything came together just right.

In the span of just one morning, two men, Sabastian Sawe and Yomif Kejelcha, pulled off the feat that Kelvin Kiptum missed by 36 seconds. They did what Eliud Kipchoge needed a perfectly controlled experiment to achieve, running 1:59:30 and 1:59:41, respectively. And they did it in the Adidas Adizero Pro Evo 3 — a shoe that you’ll probably never own. You could own it, provided you have the Adidas app and a spare $500, but the odds are slim.

Sawe and Kejelcha weren’t the only runners to shatter records, though, as Tigst Assefa defended her London Marathon crown and lowered the women’s world record to 2:15:41 in the process. Her shoe? Once again, the Adidas Adizero Pro Evo 3. It’s a good day to rock the Three Stripes.

Of course, the pessimist out there could stand up and say, “Yeah, but were they clean?” Implying that the fastest men on earth had to dope to get there. At least Sawe has an answer for that, too, with sponsor Adidas contributing upwards of $50,000 to the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) to test him as much as possible leading up to races. So, as long as the remeasuring of the London Marathon course is legit, you can set this record in stone… at least until the next marathon with favorable conditions. Berlin, anyone?

The Fastest Shoe Ever Made

While most of the attention will (and should) be on the athletes themselves, we’d be remiss not to talk a little bit more about the shoes they wore. All three record breakers laced up the Adidas Adizero Pro Evo 3, the lightest shoe we’ve ever held. Meg has a pair, and lifting them out of the box feels like no more than picking up a styrofoam cup. It’s actually insane.

Of course, Adidas has wowed us with the Pro Evo line before, but never like this. The new formulation of Lightstrike Pro Evo is plush, responsive, and as light as astronaut ice cream, while the EnergyRim provides pop on par with a carbon fiber plate or EnergyRods, with a fraction of the footprint. Oh, and there’s a teeny, tiny pad of Continental rubber on the forefoot of the Pro Evo 3, as if you needed any more indication of where to strike as you seek out your PR.

As you can imagine, it was always going to be hard to get your hands on such a shoe. But now that it’s set two world records, you can crank those odds to nearly impossible. Then again, maybe the $500 admission price will deter some prospective buyers — only one way to find out. Hit the button below to see if your size is still in stock.