Andreas Almgren is heading into New York with a new pair of shoes and a clear hope: that Nike Apex can help him on marathon day. He says he has already used them on all of his tougher long runs and that those sessions have given him very good confidence.
For Almgren, the interest in the shoe is tied to a larger shift in road running. He says there is a before-and-after line around 2016, when the supershoe era began to change what runners thought was possible over the marathon. Since then, he says, runners have been able to go very much faster with shoes built to return extra energy and pace.
Nike Apex was officially introduced only a few weeks ago at the Chicago marathon, and its design is meant to explain the buzz. The shoe is extremely light and has double air cushions in the front part, a setup aimed at giving extra push-back and extra speed. The broader argument around these models is not just that they help one runner feel quicker, but that they affect how older records are judged at all.
That is also why the shoes are being watched so closely. Toni Arndt, who is part of a World Athletics working group that checks whether these revolutionary shoes follow the rules, said the biggest difference in the next generation of long-distance shoes is the weight. But she also said the group has not yet had time to research the new shoes.
There are practical limits, too. The sole on Nike Apex can be worn out after ten miles, which is part of the trade-off in a shoe built for speed rather than durability. Malin Ewerlöf reacted strongly to that detail, underscoring how striking the technology still looks even to people who know the sport well.
For Almgren, though, the question is simpler and more immediate than the debate around records or regulation. He has found a shoe he trusts in hard training, and he now plans to take that confidence into New York on Sunday. If Nike Apex works there the way it has in training, the race will be another sign that the supershoe era is no longer an experiment. It is the baseline.
