Subject
How many seconds is a £450 shoe actually worth?
Note
Set your race and the bench returns the answer: the time it saves you, your projected finish, and the price of every one of those seconds. Measured the same way for every shoe, no sponsored placements.
- Race
- Marathon
- Current
- 3:45:00
- Measured against
- A normal cushioned trainer
Time bought back
4m 06s
0Range 3m 26s – 4m 46s5 min
In the adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 2, your 3:45:00 becomes a 3:40:14.
| Chosen for | Shoe | Seconds returned | Sole v. the 40mm limit | Per second | Price | Retailer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Most time | adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 2 | 4m 06s | 39mm | £0.96 | £450 | |
| Best value | New Balance FuelCell SuperComp Trainer v4 | 2m 28s | 47mm — over | £0.12 | £190 | |
| All round | New Balance FuelCell SC Elite v5 | 3m 32s | 40mm | £0.30 | £250 |
Why the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 2
Across every shoe built for the marathon, this returns the most time at 5:20/km. It is demanding underfoot, which is the other half of whether it is still working late in the race.
- £237 a race — about 1.9 marathons before the foam stops giving it back.
- 138g, 39mm stack — inside the 40mm road limit, demanding underfoot, narrow fit.
Everyone quotes
4% faster.
That figure came from a laboratory study of fast runners, and it describes running economy — how much oxygen you use — not the time on the clock. Three things sit between it and your finish. Here is where it goes, for the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 2 over a normal cushioned trainer.
Drawn on one scale · 0 to 5% · every step is the arithmetic this page runs
- 01
Published economy gain
the figure the shoe is sold on, measured on fast runners in a laboratory
5.00%
- 02
Against what you race in now
a gain has to be a gain over something — here, a normal cushioned trainer
4.20%
- 03
At your pace, not the lab’s
the plate and foam need force to give energy back, and the testing was done at 14–18 km/h
3.33%
- 04
Economy is not speed
drag and the metabolic cost of running do not scale linearly, so a percent of oxygen is not a percent of clock
2.17%
2.17% of a 3:45:00 race is 4m 46s. That is the number this site is willing to stand behind — and it is less than half of what the 4% on the box implies.
The full method is published, assumptions included — including the one we are least sure of.