Performance
Every Possible Second
Inside Nike’s New Race-Day Construct
Editor’s note: On Sunday 11 October, Eliud Kipchoge will premiere the brand-new Nike Apex at the Nike Melbourne Marathon. Nike invited Tempo Journal’s content lead, Mack Dewar, to Sydney for a hands-on first look at its new race-day line-up of Apex, Swooshfly and Alphafly 4. This story is produced in partnership with Nike.
Last year, Nike took Tempo Journal to Mount Martha to unpack its 9box framework, a new way of thinking about everyday training shoes. This time, the invitation – and the innovation – came from the other end of the shoe rotation. Nike flew our content lead, Mack Dewar, to Sydney for a first look at the shoes it has built for race day and the thinking that ties them together.
Mack got his hands on the Apex and saw the rest of the new line-up at close quarters, right down to the individual components. “It was quite cool to see it in hand and see it broken down,” he says. The all-black pair of the Alphafly 4 that we’ve seen looks every bit the race-day weapon.
Nike calls it the race-day construct: a line-up of distinct shoes, each built for a different runner and a different kind of race day. Three of them are our focus here. The Apex represents one of the biggest steps forward in marathon footwear since Nike introduced the original super shoe. The Swooshfly is brand new and represents Nike’s goal of making a marathon super shoe that is accessible to as many people as possible. And the Alphafly 4 is the latest chapter for the OG super shoe, a design that has carried some of the most famous runs in the sport’s history.
The Apex represents one of the biggest steps forward in race-day footwear since Nike introduced the original super shoe.
A SYSTEM OF SPEED
It’s worth remembering where the super shoe came from. Nearly a decade ago, Nike paired a carbon-fibre plate with a deep stack of responsive foam and changed what runners expect from a race-day shoe. Records fell, the rulebook was rewritten and the super shoe became a category in its own right.
The sport has changed, too. Running has boomed, and the start line of a big-city marathon now holds everyone from Olympians to first-timers who simply want to reach the finish. Mack sees the construct as Nike responding to that shift. “This construct has had to evolve with how running has been reshaped over the last five to 10 years,” he says. “You’ve seen this big boom in running, and not everyone can access or wants to wear one of those super top-end shoes.”
So Nike has built a system of options rather than a ladder to climb. The construct isn’t designed as a hierarchy; each shoe is a distinct tool, matched to a runner’s goals, distance and experience. Swooshfly opens the door. Alphafly carries speed over distance. Apex pushes the edge of what race-day innovation can become.
What unites them is what Nike calls its system of speed: proprietary Air Zoom, responsive foams and carbon-fibre Flyplates, engineered to work together. The process starts with the athlete. Insights from runners at every level feed research at the Nike Sport Research Lab, while the LeBron James Innovation Center designs down to the thread and the air molecule, developing the manufacturing capabilities to bring new ideas to life.
The race-day construct isn’t designed as a hierarchy. Each shoe is a distinct tool, matched to a runner’s goals, distance and experience.
NIKE APEX: THE PINNACLE OF THE POSSIBLE
If the construct has a headline act, it’s the Apex. It is Nike’s new pinnacle race-day shoe, built for runners chasing every possible second, and Mack reaches for motorsport to describe it. “It’s like the Formula One of racing shoes,” he says. It represents the leading edge of what Nike’s designers can achieve, without compromise.
The story of the Apex is Air. It is the first racing shoe with a double-stacked Air Zoom unit: where the Alphafly carries a pair of Air Zoom pods, the Apex stacks a second pair on top, for four in each shoe. Nike teams pursued the concept for more than eight years before unlocking a version that delivers meaningful performance benefits within race-day regulations. Rather than refining what came before, the Apex reimagines what’s possible within today’s rules, and it’s designed to feel that way from the first stride: light, airy and fast, with significant energy return, more cushioning and no loss of speed or responsiveness.
For Mack, it’s Nike playing to a strength no other brand shares. “They’re using a piece of technology that only they really have access to, which is Air,” he says. “They’re literally doubling down on it.”
The Apex is engineered to the rulebook. World Athletics caps road racing shoes at 40mm of stack height, and most racing shoes spend that allowance at the heel before dropping away towards the toe. The Apex runs 40mm at the heel and 40mm at the forefoot, with zero drop, making it Nike’s most stacked racing shoe and maximising the amount of Air available to compress, store and return energy.
“Their thinking is that where you want the most responsiveness under your foot is where these Air Zoom units are,” Mack explains. “So why not make it as big as possible?”
Eliud Kipchoge on what running in the Nike Apex feels like“Flying”
Every other component serves that system. The midsole uses ZoomX LT, a race-specific foam that is softer and lighter than ZoomX and returns more energy than the foam’s previous iteration. A fully redesigned inverse wave carbon plate works with a wider outsole and rocker geometry to add forward drive and stability. GOATEK (ACG’s proprietary traction platform) and Fast Shot rubber compounds appear only where runners need traction most, saving weight everywhere else.
The upper is just as considered. There’s no sockliner, so the foot sits directly on the cushioning, while a lightweight Apex Atomknit upper and fitted knit collar deliver a contoured, glove-like fit. Comparing a US men’s size 10, the result weighs 15 per cent less than the Alphafly 3 and, at 190g is – as you would expect – the lightest of the three shoes here.
The Apex also wears its innovation on the outside. The double-stacked Air is visible through the midsole, giving the shoe a silhouette unlike anything else on the start line and making plain the technology working beneath every stride. It’s a shoe built specifically for race day – a pair for your biggest days, and only those. You’ll be able to purchase the Apex at nike.com and select retailers when it’s released in 2027.
It’s fitting, then, that the first athlete to line up in the Apex is the runner who has done more than anyone to show what Nike’s race-day innovation can do. Seven years after he wore a prototype of the original Alphafly to become the first person to cover the marathon distance in under two hours, Eliud Kipchoge will wear the Apex at the Nike Melbourne Marathon on Sunday 11 October, the third stop on his seven-continent world tour. For Melbourne runners, it’s a chance to see the next chapter of Nike racing begin on home roads.
In a media event early this week, Kipchoge – speaking over video from Kenya ahead of landing in Melbourne – was asked to describe in one word what it feels like to run in the Nike Apex. His reply: “Flying.”
NIKE SWOOSHFLY: YOUR INVITATION TO RACE DAY
If the Apex is about the edge of performance, the Swooshfly is about who gets to feel race-day speed in the first place. It’s an all-new shoe, and Nike describes it as an invitation: a first super shoe for first races and new goals, built for everything from 5K to the marathon.
Scheduled for release next year, the Swooshfly grew out of insights from runners in Greater China, who told Nike they wanted the thrill of a super shoe with more comfort, stability and confidence, at a price that felt within reach. Nike found those needs were shared by runners around the world. “It’s the entry into racing shoes for people who are newer to running,” Mack says. “More affordable, more durable, less intimidating.”
The Swooshfly is an all-new shoe, and Nike describes it as an invitation: a first super shoe for first races and new goals, built for everything from 5K to the marathon.
The key is a new foam. SKYX, a proprietary supercritical compound, delivers responsive cushioning and stability, and it’s what allows the Swooshfly to arrive at a significantly lower price than Nike’s other super shoes. Beneath it, a stiff five-layer carbon Flyplate smooths transitions and adds spring at a range of race paces. With 37mm of stack at the heel and 31mm at the forefoot, the ride is cushioned and balanced, with a kick when you ask for it.
Fit has been rethought for a broader range of runners. An accommodating last gives all-over comfort, while a midfoot band, race-specific laces and a heel counter hold the foot securely. A supercritical foam sockliner, plush tongue and collar add comfort, and a dual-rubber GOATEK outsole provides traction under both heel and forefoot.
That durability means the Swooshfly is as happy in training as it is on race day. And it looks the part. A translucent Vaporweave upper, with bold pops of red throughout, nods to the original Vaporfly NEXT% and lets your socks show through. Its silhouette is deliberately less intimidating than a typical race shoe, too – designed to build confidence before you’ve taken a step. For the runner lining up at their first half marathon, or finally committing to a full, that might be the most important feature of all.
NIKE ALPHAFLY 4: SPEED OVER DISTANCE
At first glance, the Alphafly 4 looks familiar, and that’s no bad thing for a franchise with this kind of track record. The changes are underneath, in every major component, guided by years of athlete feedback.
The biggest is Air. For the first time in the franchise’s history, Nike has changed the Air Zoom units, making them lighter, bouncier and quieter than before – a response to one of the most common requests from Alphafly devotees. Around them, the midsole now combines standard ZoomX with the new ZoomX LT.
Stability has been a major focus. A wider carbon-fibre Flyplate provides a more solid base, with ZoomX LT above and below it for comfort, while the signature propulsive scoop maintains that rolling sensation and a consistent cadence deep into a race. Mack expects the wider plate to make it noticeably steadier underfoot than its predecessor – welcome news for anyone whose form starts to unravel over the final 10km.
For the first time in the Alphafly’s history, Nike has changed the Air Zoom units, making them lighter, bouncier and quieter than those in previous versions.
That matters because the Alphafly 4 is built for runners chasing every version of speed across distance, from podium contenders to those chasing a sub-three, sub-four or first finish. Building on learnings from extensive women’s testing, Nike engineered it to work across a broader range of paces, body types and running styles.
The Atomknit upper has been re-engineered too, with a seamless design, zoned midfoot cables and an integrated heel unit, and a moulded sockliner that dials in the fit. A GOATEK outsole adds traction and durability.
The shoe already has results to its name. Conner Mantz set a US marathon record in Chicago last year in the prototype that shaped it, and Jacob Kiplimo broke the half-marathon world record in Lisbon in March. Closer to home, Addisu Gobena won the Sydney Marathon in August in the Alphafly 4, setting a course record of 2:04:42.
With a 39mm heel, 31mm forefoot and an 8mm drop, it weighs 208g in a men’s US 10. The Alphafly 4 arrives in Australia on 30 October, priced at $400.
Together, the Apex, Swooshfly and Alphafly 4 give runners a clear way to choose a race-day tool: by the race they’re running and the runner they are. Each has a distinct job, and each is built to make race day feel more possible, more personal and more powerful.
FROM WAFFLE SOLE TO APEX: A TIMELINE
1964: Coach Bill Bowerman and runner-turned-entrepreneur Phil Knight launch Blue Ribbon Sports, later to become Nike.
1971: Bowerman, long in the habit of hand-making lighter spikes for his University of Oregon athletes, pours liquid urethane into his wife’s waffle iron to create the waffle sole; wearing Bowerman’s shoes, his team goes on to win the year’s NCAA cross country title.
December 1978: Nike Air debuts in the Tailwind, launched at the Honolulu Marathon.
August 2016: Eliud Kipchoge wins Olympic marathon gold in Rio in a prototype of what becomes the Vaporfly.
May 2017: Kipchoge runs 2:00:25 at Monza in the Breaking2 project, wearing the Vaporfly Elite.
September 2018: Kipchoge sets a marathon world record of 2:01:39 in Berlin in the Vaporfly 4% Flyknit.
October 2019: Kipchoge wears a prototype of the original Alphafly to break the two-hour barrier across 42.2km in the Ineos 1:59 Challenge.
January 2020: World Athletics caps road-shoe stack height at 40mm, the limit the new Nike Apex is engineered around.
October 2023: Kelvin Kiptum sets a marathon world record of 2:00:35 in Chicago wearing the Alphafly 3.
October 2025: Conner Mantz sets a US marathon record of 2:04:43 in Chicago wearing a prototype that goes on to shape the Alphafly 4.
March 2026: Jacob Kiplimo breaks the half-marathon world record in Lisbon, running 57:20 with the Alphafly 4 on his feet.
August 2026: Addisu Gobena wins the Sydney Marathon in the Alphafly 4, setting a course record of 2:04:42.
October 2026: Nike unveils the all-new Apex and Swooshfly.
11 October 2026: Kipchoge premieres the Nike Apex at the Nike Melbourne Marathon.
30 October 2026: The Alphafly 4 goes on sale in Australia, simultaneous with global release.
