Adidas Can Officially Claim the Boldest Super Shoe of the Year and It’s Not Close

For many casuals, running a single mile in under six minutes would be a PR.

For Aleksandr Sorokin, it meant a new world record. He just had to do it 60-some-odd times, without stopping for food, water or to use the restroom.

In 2023, the Lithuanian ran over 62 miles in a time of 6 hours, 5 minutes and 35 seconds, breaking his own 100-kilometer world record set the year before.

“Chasing 100”

Soon, Sorokin will attempt the feat again, with the goal of becoming the first person in history to run the distance in less than six hours.

Only he won’t be alone; he’ll be joined by four other Adidas athletes in a time trial the brand is calling Chasing 100, scheduled for August 26.

Fortunately for him, he’ll also have the might of the German sportswear giant behind him.

Adidas

Adidas

Adidas took to social media to announce the event, simultaneously teasing a handful of new innovations that include a singlet, socks, cooling vest and, without a doubt, the boldest super shoe you’ll see this year.

Not much is yet known about the so-called “Adizero Evo Prime X.” However, a few things can be inferred by what Adidas has already shared on Instagram and TikTok.

Stack the cards

The shoe, which has a rumored stack height of 60mm (50 percent higher than the limit set by World Athletics), features the brand’s pinnacle race foam, Lightstrike Pro Evo, as revealed by text on the supersized midsole.

Adidas

That means it’s deceptively lightweight despite the size of its bottom half — just like the blisteringly fast Adizero Adios Pro Evo, which shares the same foam compound.

According to Adidas, Lightstrike Pro Evo is five percent more responsive than anything else it’s made to date, and it even has receipts to support the claim.

Upon its debut in 2023, the Adizero Adios Pro Evo promptly fueled Tigst Assefa to a new world record in the women’s marathon. (Assefa’s time was later beaten by Ruth Chepngetich, who is now suspended for drug-testing violations.)

Adidas

Margin call

Interestingly, the shoe also appears to forgo the use of rods or plates, which would lend it stability — a quality conventional logic would suggest it desperately needs due to that monstrous stack height.

Adidas

In a teaser showcasing the shoe in-action on a treadmill, the foam appears to contract by a significant amount with each step. Yet it may be a tactic the brand bets reduces muscle fatigue over the course of an ultra (similar to the S/Lab Ultra Glide released by Salomon earlier this year).

How the technology performs over the course of 62 miles remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: even if Sorokin is successful, his achievement won’t count as an official world record, at least to some.

The use of pacers, not to mention the shoe’s stack height, will make any time invalid in the eyes of World Athletics, who did not ratify one of Sorokin’s previous record-setting runs on the tracks — nor the sub-two-hour marathon by Eliud Kipchoge for similar reasons.

In any case, Chasing 100 represents a bold step by Adidas to go where no athlete, or super shoe, has gone before.

At the end of the day, history isn’t just measured in minutes and seconds but millimeters, too.

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