Nike ‘Super Shoes’ Reselling for Up to $1,000 After World-Record Marathon
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After helping Kenyan runner Kelvin Kiptum break the world marathon record last year, Nike’s Alphafly 3 Proto men’s running shoes sold out in less than two minutes on Thursday, and are now going for nearly $750 on the resale market.
Kiptum wore the shoes during the Chicago Marathon in October, where he became the first runner to finish in less than two hours and one minute in a 26.2-mile race. Nike made the Alphafly 3 shoes—which are designed with ultra-light materials reinforced by carbon inside responsive foam—available for sale on its website on Thursday for $285.
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The sneakers immediately sold out. Within hours, pairs of Alphafly 3 shoes appeared on eBay at prices ranging from $350 to $1,150 for buy-it-now purchases. On Friday, StockX sold dozens of pairs of the style, with sales ranging from $340-$586.
“Super shoes” such as the Alphafly 3 have become a must-have for competitive runners due to their light weight and ability to help runners propel themselves forward while retaining energy. Since 2020, every world distance record of more than 5,000 meters has been set by runners wearing some type of “super shoes” or “super spikes.”
Adidas has its own “super shoe,” the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1, which runner Tigist Assefa wore to break the world women’s marathon record in Berlin in September. The Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1 weighs in at 4.87 ounces, compared to the usual 7-9 ounce weight of high-performance marathon shoes. The sneakers retail for $500.
Nike’s Alphafly 3 weighs nearly twice as much as the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1, coming in at just under 7.7 ounces, but the shoes are 15 percent lighter than the Alphafly 2.
Both the Alphafly 3 and the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1 are designed to be race-day shoes—lightweight footwear used specifically for competition as opposed to training. Because of that design, “super shoes” generally are not meant to last for an extended period.
“The high performance nature of the shoe makes it optimized towards race day, but we have tested it with different athletes across different distances and we, along with our athlete partners, have been very pleased with the results,” an Adidas rep told Runner’s World. “The exact longevity of the shoe delivering this high performance will depend on the athlete wearing them and the conditions they are worn in.”
Only 521 pairs of the Alphafly 3 were available for sale, and there’s no word on when Nike will restock the sought-after running shoes.
