This year’s Boston Marathon featured perfect weather, blistering fast times, and a wide range of super shoes. Women’s winner Sharon Lokedi destroyed the course record, while the men’s champ John Korir fell at the start of the race but got up to run the second-fastest time ever on the course. And the top Americans, Conner Mantz and Jess McClain, crushed their personal records—Mantz just missed the podium and his 2:05:08 is the second-fastest marathon ever by a U.S. runner.
Most interesting to us shoe nerds is that each of those runners had on a different pair of road racing shoes. It seems that true parity has finally arrived. You no longer show up to a start line feeling like you’re at a disadvantage because you’re not wearing a certain brand’s super shoe—every company is churning out exceptionally fast footwear. Here are the shoes that stepped atop the podium at the 2025 Boston Marathon.
Top 3 Men
🥇 Asics Metaspeed Sky Prototype
John Korir (KEN) — 2:04:45
We’ve already known the Asics Metaspeed racing shoes (there are two variants) like to get up and go. It looks like the work-in-progress is no slouch, as Korir wore a development shoe to break the tape. World Athletics, the governing body that sets rules for running footwear, shows two Asics prototypes approved for competition—”ME4 Type-1” and “ME4 Type-P.” It appears Korir wore the “Sky” version, based on visual cues which indicate the placement of the carbon-fiber plate.
🥈🥉 Adidas Adios Pro Evo 2
Alphonce Felix Simbu (TZA) — 2:05:04; CyBrian Kotut (KEN) — 2:05:04
In a near photo finish, Simbu and Kotut were nearly mirror images. Both wore the same Adidas singlet, socks, and Adidas Adios Pro Evo 2 shoes. The shoe isn’t yet available to us non-pros, but it’s an update to the $500 racer that we’ve previously tested.
Top 3 Women
🥇 Under Armour Velociti Elite 3 Prototype
Sharon Lokedi (KEN) — 2:17:22
Sharon Lokedi moved up a spot in this year’s standings and claimed the laurel wreath. The Under Armour star laced up a development shoe that’s approved by World Athletics, but we don’t have details on the shoe to share yet.
🥈 On Cloudboom Strike LS
Hellen Obiri (KEN) — 2:17:41
Obiri laced up donned one of the hottest shoes of last fall. The On Cloudboom Strike LS is a laceless shoe that’s created by a robot in just three minutes.
🥉 Nike Alphafly 3
Yalemzerf Yehualaw (ETH) — 2:18:06
Rounding out the women’s podium is the Alphafly 3. I saw (and heard) a lot of them on the course, nearly an hour behind Yehualaw.
Top 3 American Men
🏅 Nike Alphafly 3
Conner Mantz (USA) — 2:05:08
Conner Mantz is now the second-fastest U.S. marathoner ever. He wore the same model shoe that he used for a top-10 finish at the Olympics in Paris last summer.
🏅Asics Metaspeed Sky Prototype
Clayton Young (USA) — 2:07:04
Young trains with Mantz and the two always seem to finish close to each other. Young wore the same prototype (or a variant of it) that we saw come through the finish line first with John Korir.
🏅 Puma Fast-R Nitro Elite 3
Ryan Ford (USA) — 2:08:00
I, too, ran the Boston Marathon this year, so wasn’t on the sidelines peeping shoes. So I had to do some sleuthing to find out what Ryan Ford rocked. Based on an Instagram Reel posted by ZAP Endurance and an Instagram Story from running agent Josh Cox, he had on the Fast-R Nitro Elite 3. It was the most-talked-about shoe of the weekend, after a Puma-funded study showed it can make runners faster. We have the shoe in for testing now and will have a review of it soon.
Top 3 American Women
🏅 Brooks Hyperion Elite 4 PB
Jess McClain (USA) — 2:22:43
The “PB” in this shoe’s name signifies a new, more-super foam that Brooks is using, compared to earlier versions of the Hyperion Elite. And it seems to be a gem, based on McClain’s top-10 finish and new PR by more than three minutes.
🏅 Puma Fast-R Nitro Elite 3
Annie Frisbie (USA) — 2:23:21
Frisbie, too, is sporting a shiny new PR. She was wearing that exciting Fast-R Nitro Elite 3 that’s just been announced.
🏅 Asics Metaspeed Edge Prototype
Emma Bates (USA) — 2:25:10
Rounding out the top 3 American women is Bates, who rocked the same mint green colorway Metaspeed prototype that we saw prevously. Asics makes two variants of the shoe, and we know that Bates wore the Edge version last year.
Jeff is Runner-in-Chief for Runner’s World and the director of product testing. He has tested and reviewed running shoes, GPS watches, headphones, apparel, and more for nearly two decades. He regularly tests more than 100 pairs of shoes each year, and once had a 257-day streak running in different models. Jeff can usually be found on the roads, racing anything from the mile to a marathon, but he also enjoys racing up mountains and on snowshoes. When he’s not running, you’ll probably find him hanging from a ladder making repairs and renovations to his house (he’s also director of product testing for Popular Mechanics).
