What do you do when you already have the fastest shoe in the world? You don’t sit on your laurels and find ways to make it faster. I recently got a chance to take the latest iteration of Alphafly Next% 3 for a few trots. This is the same shoe that was on the feet of (the late) world record -breaker Kiptum when he (s)whooshed past the finish line and straight into running history at the last Berlin marathon, and here are my findings.
Right off the chalks, this shoe is fast. It’s blazing fast! Everything about this shoe is engineered for speed. But all that speed chips away at the shoe’s comfort and stability quotient. In other words, definitely race day material.
But can you also train in it? Well, I haven’t been putting in as many miles (or as fast) as last year so this shoe to me, especially on the first few runs, was all about trying to reign in a young and naughty, unrelenting colt.
I had to keep my pace in check and I had to be doubly sure around bends and turns. The shoe is blade-like and I remember this feel from the first alteration of this shoe (the second (previous) one was a lot more gripping and held down). This shoe has a bounce that seems to have a motor of its own, and it doesn’t die down mid-run; it relentlessly keeps returning the ground impact in the form of energy for the next toe-off cycle. Even on the treadmill, this energy remained undauntingly conspicuous. Conclusion, train in it all you want but start slow, till you get a hang of how the shoe feels and will function under your feet before you decide to push them to the max.
One last thing, the only thing that had me feeling a bit mixed, was the way the shoe looks. The uppers sit atop a cushy heel that runs like a widening beam for the entire length of the shoe, and then ends abruptly at the heel which tapers inwards. So, overall, the shoe reminds a little of cowboy boots but a lot of those retro height-gaining platform shoes. In other words, if you were planning to take these along on a trip as a sneaker by day and running shoe next morning, then may not be the one. It is so purely functional and speed-oriented that the general aesthetics are almost alien to generally accepted running silhouettes. But then, just as you wouldn’t turn up for a board meeting in your side-slit run shorts, you can leave these in the room too in favour of something more suitable.
That said, come race time, it’s definitely going to have many takers. Go for the Nike Alphafly 3, especially if you want to see just how fast and far you will end up running when the “blaming the tools” excuse is taken out of the equation.
