When Nike embarked

on a project to break the two-hour marathon barrier, the company put its vast resources towards training the right athletes, finding a perfect course with ideal conditions and, of course, developing finely tuned footwear with innovative new technologies. The completely custom footwear (called Zoom Vaporfly Elite) unveiled for the sub-two attempt this spring reignited debate over whether a shoe can give a runner an unfair advantage. So, will it? The jury is still out, but the company is applying some of the R&D from its elite ‘concept car’ shoes to two models that will be available to us mere mortals from June 8 (Nike.com), so you can chase a faster performance of your own (presumably free of any IAAF interference).

Using lightweight, resilient foam and a stiff carbon-fibre plate, the Zoom Vaporfly 4% is designed to get you from start to finish using less energy. A second consumer model, the Zoom Fly – with a different foam-and carbon-infused nylon plate – will also be available. At the Runner’s World Shoe Lab, we tested the Zoom Vaporfly 4% on an elite runner at speeds up to 2:17 marathon pace. Here’s what the data told us…