The Nike Zoom Vaporfly Elite review: A little under a year ago, over an early morning coffee, Nike handed me a very special shoe box. Emblazoned on the side were the words Zoom Vaporfly Elite. If you’ve been following the Nike Breaking2 Project you might know why these three words are special. If not, let me explain.
It’d been a couple of months since Eliud Kipchoge had smashed out a 2:00:25 around the race track at Monza, narrowly failing to become the first person to run a marathon in under two hours. On that track in Monza, Kipchoge wore a pair of shoes engineered to deliver speed, probably the most technologically advanced shoes Nike had ever produced. Inside the red box I was being handed were a pair of those very rare shoes, the Nike Zoom Vaporfly Elite.
It’s not everyday you get given something like this. Even getting hold of a pair of the Nike Zoom 4% – the slightly tweaked, commercially available version of these shoes – was proving a tough challenge, mainly because they were flying off the shelves in less time than it’d take Kipchoge to run a mile at PB pace. What I was being given was the rare opportunity to lace up in shoes only the world’s best runners had worn. That’s a bit like being handed the keys to an F1 car.
Needless to say I immediately put down my coffee and took them for a spin around Regents Park. After a quick 7k taster run the shoes went back in the box. They were built, so I was told by Nike, really only to last for a few runs, based on Nike founder Bill Bowerman’s belief that the perfect race shoes should fall apart as you cross the line, anything more than that means you’ve probably compromised on performance to provide durability. Where seconds count – in Kipchoge’s case 25 seconds – there’s no room for compromises.
And so my Nike Zoom Vaporfly Elite wouldn’t come out again until the morning of the 2018 Hamburg Marathon where I’d run in them in anger for the first time, attempting to beat my 2:57:56 personal best as part of a Year of the PBs challenge to make the most of the go-faster footwear I’d been given.
Running a marathon in the Nike Zoom Vaporfly Elite
After the unique silhouette, with it’s aerodynamic pointed rear midsole protrusion that looks a little like the back of a track cyclist’s helmet, the first thing you notice about the Nike Zoom Vaporfly Elite is how light they are. At less than 200g per shoe there’s nothing to them, mainly thanks to Nike’s cutting edge ZoomX foam that’s a third of the weight of the cushioning foam found in other running shoes. So even though to look at you’d think the quantity of foam would add weight, it doesn’t.
The moment you slip on the Nike Zoom Vaporfly Elite you’re aware these are not ordinary shoes. Even walking around you’re immediately tipped slightly forward onto your toes and there’s a spring in the movement they create that’s far more pronounced than you find in most shoes, even the more Boost-foamy Adidas Boosts. Some of this is the foam midsole and part of it is down to the inclusion of a carbon fibre plate insert inside the midsole that covers the entire base of the shoe, adding propulsion on push off.
The first time I put them on, I found the Flyknit uppers a little snug and it was a wiggle and squeeze to get them on around my high instep but once you’re in, they felt great. The knitted mesh hugs your foot securely enough that there’s barely any need for the laces, in fact Nike considered ditching them altogether but athlete feedback meant they made the cut.
When I first saw all that cushioning in the sole I was a little apprehensive. I’m not a huge fan of over-cushioned shoes and I was afraid that there’d be too much bounce, causing you to lose the feeling of being in contact with the ground. But that’s not the case, they run very much like a racing flat, just with some added forward zip.
Hamburg was only the third time I’d run in the Zoom Vaporfly Elite. I’d given them just one other single mile outing on top of my first 7k trial, so by wearing these I was breaking that old running law of never wearing new shoes for a marathon. But I always say you can tell a good pair of running shoes if you forget you’re wearing them and that’s exactly what I got for the first 15 miles of Hamburg, at least while I was running well and at a fast pace.
Despite being light and minimal, my feet felt protected. You’re aware of the carbon fibre plate doing it’s job but in a way that feels quite natural. I also loved the fact that the Flyknit toe box had some give, allowing decent wiggle room for the toes to splay. I’d imagine some overpronators probably wouldn’t find enough structure in the uppers, and there’s a danger of a bit of side over spill but for me that wasn’t a problem.
What was a problem was when my marathon PB hopes started to disintegrate, my pace slowed and my legs tired. This had nothing to do with the shoes and everything to do with the Hamburg heat and the fact I was slightly under trained for the target I was trying to hit. But what this revealed is that the Zoom Vaporfly Elite are built for runners running fast and with good form.
When I started to flag and rock back a bit on my heels, they became a lot less comfortable and for the final five miles I can say I was more aware of my shoes than I’d like to be. You can’t get away with bad form in shoes like this. For Kipchoge who runs with fine, consistent form I doubt this was a concern but for beaten up and battle weary me, it was.
As I mentioned these shoes weren’t built to last and after one 26.2 outing there were showing some scars on the unprotected parts of the sole but nothing that means I can’t wear them for my next attempt at the 2:57.
Nike Zoom Vaporfly Elite review: The verdict
So did these magic hi-tech shoes give me the edge? Did I feel the benefits of that much-debated extra 4% that these and their consumer-facing sibling the Nike Zoom 4% claim to offer? Well, the truth is I’m still not sure. I’d love to have come back with a time that was 4% faster than 2:57:56 so I could say yes but I can’t. I crossed the Hamburg Marathon finish line in 3:18, more than 20 minutes off a PB so I can’t verify those performance gains.
What I can say, though, is that these are some of the most comfortable shoes I’ve run in, and I’ve tried a lot of shoes, over a lot of marathons. If you’re running fast and with decent form, these do make you feel like you’ve got more forward oomph than your average shoes. I think they also encourage a forefoot strike but even if these rare shoes were available to buy in the shops, I don’t think they’d suit every runner. They certainly didn’t suit me for the final 11 miles in Hamburg when my form went to the wall. I don’t blame the shoes for that though, the truth is they might well have been doing their job just fine, while the runner in them wasn’t quite up to scratch.
Now read this: Follow my Nike Zoom Vaporfly Elite inspired attempt at a Year of the PBs
