The super shoe arms race has been heating up for nearly a decade now, ever since Nike first strapped a carbon plate to a foam midsole and watched marathon records start tumbling. Every major brand has spent the years since trying to find the next meaningful edge, and most of the gains have come in increments. A gram here, a tenth of a percent there. Well, adidas just skipped several chapters ahead.
The Three Stripes officially pulled the wraps off the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3, and it’s the first racing shoe from a major brand to weigh under 100 grams. A US size 9 tips the scale at 97 grams, which, for the non-metric crowd, works out to 3.4 ounces. For context, that’s lighter than a deck of cards.
Half the Weight of an Alphafly
Let’s talk about what we all came here for, the headlining number. At 97 grams, the Evo 3 is roughly 30% lighter than the Evo 2, which was already considered stupid light by racing standards.
The real kicker is how it stacks up against the competition. Nike’s Alphafly 3, the shoe Kelvin Kiptum wore when he shattered the marathon world record in Chicago, comes in around 200 grams. Adidas has effectively built a shoe that weighs half as much as its biggest rival, and then charged the same $500 for it.
Rethinking the Plate
Most of the weight savings come from a reworked version of Lightstrike Pro Evo foam, which the brand says is nearly 50% lighter than the compound in the Evo 2. But the more interesting innovation is what’s happening around the foam.
Rather than running a traditional carbon plate through the midsole, Adidas developed something called EnergyRim, a thin carbon cutout that wraps around the perimeter of the shoe. You can actually see it exposed along the sidewall. The idea is to stabilize a taller stack of foam without adding the weight of a full-length plate, and the brand claims the combo delivers 11% more forefoot energy return and a 1.6% bump in running economy.
Built From the Upper Down
The upper looks almost transparent in person, and Adidas says it took inspiration from kitesurfing sail material to get there. Every component, down to the laces and the stitching, has been stripped to the bare minimum. Even the Continental rubber on the outsole has been rationed and placed only in the forefoot, where it actually matters for traction.
The result is a shoe that somehow hits the 39mm stack height limit while weighing less than most daily trainers weigh on one foot. Whether that holds up for mortal runners over 26.2 miles is a different conversation, but for the elites chasing seconds, those margins are everything.
Spec Sheet
Brand: Adidas
Model: Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3
Weight: 97 grams (UK 8.5 / US 9)
Stack Height: 39mm heel / 36mm forefoot
Drop: 3mm
Midsole: Lightstrike Pro Evo foam
Stability System: EnergyRim carbon
Outsole: Continental rubber (forefoot)
Upper: Kitesurf-sail-inspired engineered mesh
Pricing & Availability
The Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 will debut on the feet of Sabastian Sawe and Tigst Assefa at the 2026 London Marathon this weekend, with a highly limited public release following on April 25th. Pricing is set at $500, with a wider drop planned for the fall marathon season starting with Berlin in September.
Recap
Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3
Adidas becomes the first brand to crack the 100-gram mark on a racing shoe with the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3, a 97-gram super shoe built around a new Lightstrike Pro Evo foam and a perimeter-mounted EnergyRim carbon system in place of a traditional plate.
