These are the Best Adidas Running Shoes for 2026

Adidas has a long history of excellence within the running world that continues to this day. Quite often, you’ll see podium pairs of Adizero Adios Pro or the $500 Adizero Pro Evo 2 on the feet of some of the top marathoners in the world. That dedication to innovation and performance is not relegated to the pros— it all trickles down across the line and shows up in some of our favorite running shoes, period. 

Of course, you’re probably reading this because you want to know which shoes are best for your own running. While all our picks are subjective, we have actually run in all of these models, so we’re able to give you hands-on (er… feet on) feedback about each one. Point being, we feel confident that this list will give you a good idea of what may work for you if you’re looking for a running shoe with the three stripes. 

Whether you’re a “3 miles every other day” type runner or a hardcore “always marathon training” one, there’s something on this list for you. 

Questions or comments? Leave them below, and we’ll do our best to get back to you.

It’s been a while — a long while — since we’ve heaped praise on an Adidas shoe with Boost in the midsole. Sure, it was great back in the day, before Yeezy was as loudly controversial, but we felt like the tech had reached its peak and fallen off. The Ultraboost was simply never quite the running shoe we first thought it might be, due to weight, materials, and, well, just about everything else.

Now, though, Boost is back and better than ever on the Hyperboost Edge. Technically, Hyperboost Pro is a completely different pelletized material, which is closer to Lightstrike Pro than Boost used to be, but still. The new foam makes up the entire Hyperboost Edge’s massive midsole, which is what makes this shoe one of our instant favorites from the Three Stripes. Thomas praised it for offering better compression and rebound than either the LightSpray Cloudmonster 3 Hyper or the Superblast 3, which is high praise.

And yes, you may feel a certain type of way about the shoe’s bold styling, but you won’t spend much time glancing at your toes when you’re having this much fun.

Sometimes simplicity wins. Call it the Pro Evo Lite, or just call it by its real name: the Evo SL. Whatever you call it, this shoe is meant to be the do-it-all training partner for the much more premium Pro Evo 1. Featuring the same Lightstrike Pro midsole foam as the Adios Pro 4, this debut model comes without carbon fiber EnergyRods, offering a softer ride without sacrificing bounce.

We have close to 100 miles on our third or fourth pair of this shoe, and it’s no surprise we named it our best shoe of 2025. A simple mesh upper, a clean design, a great midsole, a Continental rubber outsole, all in a lightweight package. Did we mention it’s $150? Yeah, this one keeps selling fast whenever Adidas tweaks its upper or adds an all-terrain outsole for life on the wild side.

As a package, the Adizero SL 2 may not just be the best Adidas running shoe, but the best running shoe — period. Alright, well, given the number of other shoes we get to run in, that may be an exaggeration, but hear us out. At $130, it punches way above its weight class thanks to a smooth and bouncy underfoot feel made possible by a full Lightstrike Pro layer embedded into the more traditional Lightstrike 2.0 carrier. A monomesh upper wraps the foot like a running shoe should, especially if you have a more narrow foot.

And while the outsole isn’t Continental rubber, we had no problems with it on our end. I took this for a 12-mile long run out of the box and picked it up to tempo pace for the last couple of miles, and it went right along with everything I threw at it. Truly one of the most memorable shoes of 2024, and remarkable that we’re still talking about it in early 2026. By the way, it’s on a pretty deep discount at the moment, which means it may not be long for this world for much longer.

It had been almost two and a half years since Adidas released the previous version of this shoe, the Adios Pro 3. And while we enjoyed that version and raced a couple of marathons in it, we’re not gonna lie — we were ready for something new.

As it turned out, so was Adidas. In the kitchen, the Three Stripes were cooking up something good. The final dish? A total overhaul of the Adios Pro. Now among the lightest race-day shoes on the market, the Adios Pro 4 also features components from its premium-priced sister, the Pro Evo 1, and its successor, the Pro Evo 2. Namely, the carbon fiber EnergyRods design and placement, and midsole geometry. The new stretch-woven upper is soft, light, and luxurious, wrapping the foot perfectly from heel to toe. The reformulated rubber outsole with strategically placed Continental rubber in the toe provides fantastic traction on wet or dry surfaces.

Our only caveat: be careful of the sizing, as it seems to run slightly short this time around. In any case, Robbe landed a PR in the shoe at the Berlin Marathon, so this is a shoe that goes on the trophy shelf. Hopefully, it does the same for you.

Sometimes, a brand comes out and does something totally insane. For Adidas, we originally thought that was the Adizero Pro Evo line — lightweight, bouncy, and ready to die after 100 miles. Apparently, we were wrong. Adidas’ idea of ‘totally insane’ is actually to make a lightweight, bouncy shoe ready to break 100-kilometer records. At least, that’s how we were introduced to the Adizero Prime X Evo.

Picture this: A looped race in the middle of the night with the sole goal of breaking the six-hour barrier in the 100K, combining perfect conditions with the perfect shoe that’s nowhere near the World Athletics standard. The best part? It worked. South African athlete Sibusiso Kubheka rode the mountainous 50 mm of Lightstrike Pro Evo foam and Energy Rim support to a breathtaking 5:59:20.

Now, we’re not saying you can go out and do the same thing — this shoe is about as rare as someone other than Mondo Duplantis winning a pole vault competition — but if you can find a pair, it has to be experienced to be believed. In the office, only Meg has a pair, and yes, we’re all jealous.

Every year, Adidas promises that the Ultraboost is a great running shoe, and every year, we’re disappointed. It’s always heavy, the Boost has been outdated (until the arrival of the Hyperboost Edge, as discussed), and while it looks great, it just lost its running appeal some time ago. So when we got this shoe for testing, we weren’t too excited about it.

And then we ran in it. Boy, have the tables turned. Because the Ultraboost 5X is a great shoe for everything: running, lifestyle, travel, and more. The Light Boost midsole has been reformulated to feel softer, lighter, and bouncier. The soft knit upper is luxurious (though it’s a bit warm). And the overall package is surprisingly light, coming in under competitors like the Asics Gel-Nimbus 26 — because, again, Adidas doesn’t update every shoe every year.

If you’re looking for a great casual shoe you can wear in public and still get in some miles, you can’t do much better than this.

Oh, baby, the Boston is back, for real this time. We were pretty vocal about how much we hated the tenth and eleventh versions of Adidas’ do-it-all trainer, and now we’ll probably be just as loud about how it’s been fixed. What’s the secret, you ask? Well, quite simply, Adidas has fixed everything we hated about the midsole — simple as that. The updated Boston 13 now has more Lightstrike Pro in the forefoot, a softer formulation of Lightstrike in the heel, and a reworked set of EnergyRods sandwiched in between.

Granted, this isn’t just a brand-new version of the shoe that it was before, either. Adidas widened the forefoot, which gives it more inherent stability, while the Energy Rods keep you bouncing right along. You get a one-two combo of Lighttraxion and Continental rubber on the outsole, too, which is welcome protection from the often slippery boards of the Baltimore promenade.

One of the best ways to think of the Boston 13 is as the Adios Pro Lite, which kind of makes sense when you think about it — but also if you ignore the Evo SL. This shoe has more stack than the Takumi Sen and, outside of the Lightstrike 2.0 in the heel, offers a very similar makeup to the premium racer. Of course, the thing that makes this shoe more like an Adios Pro Lite is its Energy Rods, so just keep that in mind if you usually train without plates or other supports.

This used to be one of our more controversial picks for the best Adidas running shoes, but only because the second version was so different from what we expected. When we first tried on the Prime X2 Strung, we thought it was going to revolutionize running with illegal stacks, plates, and everything you could ask for. It was all that and more — literally.

By the time it got to us, it felt like we were running in a completely different shoe. Now, though, Adidas has righted the ship and delivered to us the Prime X3 Strung. At a glance, it doesn’t look like it’s fallen too far from the tree, which was enough to worry us for a moment. Once we got the shoe on, though, we appreciated the tighter 3D-printed weave, and the pivot from dual carbon fiber plates back to Energy Rods is much appreciated.

Thankfully, the Prime X3 Strung also stuck with the right mix in the midsole: Multiple densities of Lightstrike Pro to give you both bounce and the stability to stick it out for long miles. We should, however, note that this is still a whole lot of shoe — Meg didn’t get the best compression out of the 50 mm of stack, while resident Clydesdale, Chad, kept coming back for more and more miles.

Yes, I know, we already touched on the Adidas Adizero Evo SL. We’ve done it before, we’ll do it again — the shoe rules. However, all the Adidas running shoes we’ve picked so far tend to shine brightest in ideal conditions, so we figured it was time to muddy things up a bit. With that in mind, we’re dipping back into the Evo SL well, this time focusing on the all-terrain version.

Yes, the Adidas Adizero Evo SL ATR offers almost everything we loved about the original, which means it’s practically starting on third base. It has the same Lightstrike Pro midsole, the same smooth geometry, and a similar overall design, but it’s just a bit rougher around the edges. The previously light, airy upper now has overlays to protect your toes, the Continental outsole now sports an array of lugs across the entire sole, and the smooth laces now have small sawteeth. Evo SL, meet road-to-trail.

Of course, you might find that the Evo SL ATR is a little more built than you need for simply drizzly days. The upper sheds mud nicely but doesn’t breathe quite as easily, leaving us with slightly warm feet. Also, the short lugs aren’t enough to even think about technical terrain, in case you were eyeing an ultra on Adidas’ soft, flexible platform.

Alright, let’s get a little muddier. We’ve touched on a bunch of Adidas road running shoes so far, but the Terrex line is just as well-regarded on the trails. Taylor put plenty of miles into the Agravic Speed Ultra 2 and found that it fixed quite a few of his key flaws from the first shoe.

It’s become a quietly flashy trail shoe, preferring to let you dirty up its white colorway and bold black stripes in whichever way you see fit. Taylor pointed out that the revamped heel offers a bit more padding than before, with a slingshot-style wrap to keep your ankle from doing, well, what Robbe’s ankle tends to do. Another part of that excellent lockdown comes from sawtooth laces that you’ll immediately recognize if you’ve run in a recent racer from Nike, Asics, and plenty of others.

Perhaps the best part of the Adidas Terrex Agravic Speed Ultra 2 is its stability — something that trail racing shoes often struggle with. It has a wider forefoot with EnergyRods running through it like metatarsals, giving your toes another set of toes to ride along. Maybe it’s not as stable as, say, a low-stack Altra, but it’s better than its predecessor, and the rockered geometry keeps you bouncing for hours.