Best men’s running shoes for racing and marathons in 2025, according to a competitive athlete

The Nike Alphafly 3 is one of the most popular supershoes and one of the most effective ones. It’s Nike’s most advanced sneaker, with a powerful midsole made of Nike’s bouncy ZoomX foam, a full-length carbon plate for propulsion, and a few trampoline-like Air Zoom pods strategically placed for extra energy return. All of it makes the Alphafly 3 incredibly mighty, but also bulky, and fans of more minimalistic supershoes might be thrown off by its heft. Still, if you can stomach the price tag and the weight, it’s the best widely-available racing shoe on the market.

Think of the Vaporfly 4 as the perfect counterpart to the Alphafly 3: if the Alphafly is bulky and powerful, the Vaporfly 4 is lightweight and fast. Here’s a technical note: most supershoes make you stand 40mm off the ground, because that’s the highest stack height permitted by the running governing body, World Athletics. The Vaporfly has a smaller, 35mm stack, which allows it to be lighter than the majority of other racing shoes. Its smaller profile makes it good for marathons, but also shorter races with twists and turns that encourage quicker strides and a snappy turnover. Yet, it still has bouncy foam, a carbon plate, and all the muscle that a supershoe needs.

Let me show my cards for a moment: the Adidas Adios Pro 4 is my racing shoe of choice this season. Why? It better combines power and lightness than any sneaker I’ve tested and reviewed. A key feature of the Adidas Pro series is that instead of having a full carbon plate, they have a network of carbon rods, shaped like foot metatarsals, that provides the same power while weighing much less. The lightstrike foam in the midsole, meanwhile, is industry-leading. The result: a shoe that’s lighter than an Alphafly, and more powerful than a Vaporfly. And bonus: for a speed-based racing shoe, the Pro 4 is quite comfy, too.

ASICS launched the Metaspeed Paris in the buildup to last year’s Olympic games, and it remains one of the top shoes in the world. The draw here is that its firm foam and snug fit and relatively small size make it feel like less of a rocketship than, say, the Alphafly. Many people I know don’t like the maximalist feel of some supershoes, and would rather a sneaker that’s shaped like those they wear on easy days. The Metaspeed Paris is that shoe: feeling like a modest daily trainer on your feet, all while compactly featuring ASICS’ innovative FF Turbo Plus foam and a carbon plate in a curved sole for serious responsiveness.

This shoe, to me, is the sleeper of the year. Saucony, one of the first brands to ever develop carbon-plated shoes, somewhat fell behind big players such as Nike and Adidas in recent years in supershoe development. Now, they’ve come back roaring with the Endorphin Elite 2. The difference is in Saucony’s new Incredirun foam, a squishy, bouncy material that teams with a carbon plate to deliver as much responsiveness as any shoe in the game. The downside with the Endorphin Elite 2 is that it’s made a bit wide, and even yanking on the laces may not prevent all lateral foot movement. So, pronators beware.