Nike Running – Reviewing the 2025 lineup and previewing 2026 updates

Reviewing Nike 2025 running shoe lineup and looking ahead to what to expect in 2026.

0:00 Intro
1:27 2025 Nike lineup review
3:16 Key 2025 Nike rotations
5:49 Continued brand turnaround
10:22 Nike Alphafly 4, Elite models & foam story
20:34 Nike Pegasus 42 & Plus 2
25:31 Other 2026 Nike updates
26:25 Final thoughts on Nike 2025
27:29 Outro

Super Shoe Innovation – Paradigm shifting shoes (and ideas) since 2017 https://youtu.be/g_CAMYFCZQo
📸 https://www.instagram.com/the_secret_shoe

New York City Marathon 2025 Super Shoe Observations https://youtu.be/TzNMsJkiPH8
Chicago Marathon 2025 Super Shoe Observations https://youtu.be/GdePnGBGSvo

➡️ Other videos in this series
Asics Running https://youtu.be/vlImdTcC7ks
Adidas Running https://youtu.be/EP7qri_PSfU
Puma Running https://youtu.be/6Gpc2kVwJBE

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2025 Nike running. I think overall it’s been a fairly good year for the running vertical. Now Nike’s corporate struggles continue through 2025. They’ve had a very topsyturvy year. You look at business headlines, you’ve seen some crazy headlines. Not always positive for Nike, but this multi-year turnaround is going on and they’re in about year two of it. And I think we’re beginning to see some progress specifically to running. And I think running is probably the most important vertical at Nike because running is the heart of Nike. Every other sport, everything else they do really came from running. So Nike’s got to nail running. And I think for the first time in multiple years, people are now paying attention to Nike training shoes and not just racing shoes. And I think that’s one of the main things they needed to achieve. I think they’ve made some wonderful shoes that have caught the general running public’s attention and gotten a lot of really good press. So, I thought it’d be time to sit down, look at where Nike netted out in 2025 and what I am going to be paying attention for in 2026. This video is part three of a four-part series that I’m doing where I’m covering the primary brands that I talk about on this channel, which are AS6, Adidas, Nike, and Puma. Puma being new for 2026. So, if you’re watching this video after the fact, check the description because you’ll get links to the other three videos in this series. And with that out of the way, let’s talk about Nike running. When I look at a brand’s overall running lineup, I’m looking for three categories: trainers, tempo, and race. And with Nike’s trainers in 2025, there’s three subcategories. There’s support, which is the structure 26, or the overall structure lineup. There’s Response, which is the Pegasus lineup of the Pegasus 41, the Pegasus Plus, and the Pegasus Premium. And then there’s Cushion, which is the Vimeo 18, the Vimeo Plus, and the Vomero Premium. Moving to tempo, we have two wonderful Tempo shoes from Nike, the Zoomfly 6, and the Rivally 4. Extremely different shoes, but both very good for what they do. And in the race category, we have the Alphal 3, the Vaporfly 4, and the Street Flight 2. the Vaporfly 4 and the Street Flight 2 being two new shoes for 2025 that really rounded out the Alphal and gave a end to end fullervice road racing setup for Nike. Something I didn’t realize until I put this image together is that Nike’s overall lineup is actually fairly concise. When Nike announced this, their new trainer structure of three lines with three tiers in each, I thought that could result in an overall training lineup that had a lot of duplicate shoes and a lot of overlapping and it could be quite confusing. But coming back to this, I think looking at these shoes and those seven shoes in the training category, each one of those shoes does something very specific and has a very specific feel and they really are tailoring to really what runners are looking for. You want more ground feel, more flex, more response, that’s the Pegasus. You want more cushion with still quite a bit of response and performance, that’s the Vomero. You need something in between with some more structure, that’s the Structure. These shoes all work extremely well together and I think really complement the tempo and race options. Now, in taking that overall lineup and putting it into rotations, I think there’s three real fundamental rotations that you can start with as building blocks to really tailor Nike’s running lineup to what’s going to work for you. And the first one I’m going to call classic. That’s that classic Pegasus Vaporfly combination. at the end of 2025. I think that’s the Pegasus Plus as your trainer, the Rivally 4 as your tempo shoe, and the Vaporfly 4 as your race shoe. This is a rotation that I’ve depended on a long time. That Pegasus Vaporfly connection is strong. It’s been there. If you like ground feel, you like flex, you want to really feel your foot working as you train and race, this is the one for you. put the wonderful Rival Fly 4 in between those two shoes. You get a very traditional race flat, really excellent lower stack rotation. The next one I’m going to call balanced. This is a mix of performance cushion, but still some ground feel. In your trainer, you’re going to have the Bomero 18. As your tempo shoe, you’re going to have the Zoomfly 6. And as your race shoe, you’re going to have the Alphal 3. Though you could also put the Vaporfly 4 in here. This is going to give you a mix of cushion shoes. The wonderful Vomero 18 being sort of the default Nike trainer at this point. The crowd favorite of the Zoom 56 being a plated performance or tempo trainer that kind of runs and feels like a traditional trainer. So it doesn’t feel like it’s really extreme. And then both of these shoes work really well into the Alpha Flight 3 primarily or the Vapor Flight 4. And then the last one I’m going to call cushion. This starts with the Vomero Premium as your trainer. really focusing on easy running and recovery. Your tempo trainer now becomes the wonderful Vomero Plus, which is a shoe that really blurs the line between a trainer and a tempo shoe. And your race shoe is quite obviously the Alpha Fly 3 here. Though again, you could swap in the Vaporfly 4 depending on what you’re looking for. That’s something I’ve actually done in my own training build that I’m doing right now. With these three rotations, it really mixes and matches Nike’s training options with tempo and race options to create some really fundamental rotations that should work for a lot of runners. And the last thing I’m going to note about these three rotations is that there’s a lot of diversity and options in these rotations. And that’s something that Nike training specifically hasn’t had, especially how they ladder into race shoes. So, there’s some wonderful options here that really work well together and create a very cohesive experience for training, tempo, and race. And this brings me into the three key themes I’m going to be watching for for Nike in 2026. And the first one really is around the continued turnaround of the brand. Now, at a corporate level, the fiscal year 2025 was rough. The tariff situation hit Nike especially hard given that they’re the biggest player in the space and their revenue was down 10% over the previous year. and the business headlines and the stock price were kind of all over the place all year. However, what I have seen of the restructuring, what interviews I’ve seen of Elliot Hill, the current CEO of Nike, and what he’s saying and what they’re prioritizing as a brand, I like what I’m seeing. I like how Nike is re-emphasizing the athlete and they’re really focusing in on product to make sure that athlete can really perform. And it’s been a few years since we’ve really seen that really kind of gone allin for Nike. And it’s nice to see a return to that. From a product standpoint, again, as I said in the intro, I think to me, Nike running is the heart of Nike. It’s the one I pay attention to as a runner. It’s the one I talk about here on this channel. But to me, if Nike running is doing well and you’re seeing signs of recovery and change and innovation there, that’s eventually going to trickle to the other areas. And I think the first sign of this recovery that we saw was the end of 2024 last year with this shoe, the Nike Zoomfly 6. This was a shoe that I think surprised almost everyone in the running space, even people who just love to be down on Nike. They fell in love with this shoe. This really set, I think, a lot of excitement for what was possible from a non Nike race shoe, though this is a tempo trainer, and really just caught everyone’s attention. And I think this really set up the running product line to do quite well in 2025. And that brought us to this shoe, the Nike Vomero 18. This shoe, I think, also surprised a lot of people in that it’s just a good solid shoe. It’s not the most exciting shoe. It doesn’t need to be the most exciting shoe. I think this has become the kind of staple or really the default Nike trainer now. I think it’s superseded the Pegasus as just, you know, a shoe that anyone can jump into and find something they like about. It’s a great runner. It’s great for easy running. There’s a surprising amount of performance in this shoe. It’s protective. There’s some nice performance in this shoe. It’s got cushion as far as walking, which a lot of people use running shoes for. This is a great walking shoe. It’s a great casual shoe. I think it looks good. I think it fits well. I think Nike just did a really great job with the shoe and they really needed to get this shoe to market and I think that succeeded in 2025. And that brought us to this shoe, the Nike Vomero Plus. I think this shoe also captured a lot of attention. This shoe surprised a lot of people. Again, even people who weren’t Nike fans, I think they were really impressed with the performance in this shoe. For a max cushion trainer, this shoe has a surprising amount of versatility and performance. It’s a shoe I’ve really depended on, especially in this latter half of the year. I think this shoe’s also caught the general public’s attention. I’ve seen this on a lot of celebrities feed. It’s been featured a lot in social media and just in my recent trip to the US and around here in Taipei, I do see this shoe worn casually by a lot of people, very diverse crowd. So, this has been another shoe from Nike, the running lineup, that’s really caught some attention. And I think from a product and innovation standpoint, there’s some really solid engineering here. And I think the styling of this shoe actually works pretty well. And that brought us to this shoe, the Vomero Premium. I think this shoe really is the first true fruit of this innovation super cycle that Nike started talking about almost two years ago now in making a shoe that is building on top of the Vomero lineup but really pushing boundaries from just expectations of what’s possible with their training shoe but also some of the technology and ideas of what Nike is trying to bring to this. This has been a very surprising shoe because it’s not typically one I go for, but it’s also one that I’ve been relying on again the past month and a half or so as I’m training for a race. It’s just a wonderful shoe. And again, I’ve seen this shoe catch on in social media because I think it’s also quite a good-looking shoe. So, this is kind of that mix of Nike innovation with Nike styling and then the right shoe at the right time for kind of the right use case. I think this one is also really nailed it quite well. And that brings me into the real kind of product stories that I’m going to be watching for in 2026 from Nike. And there’s three here, though two of them are very intertwined. It’s hard to really separate them. And it all starts with the Alphal 4, which is a shoe that we’re going to see in 2026. Now, as far as Alphaly prototypes, we have been seeing Alphaly prototypes for about 20 months publicly. The first one we saw was the Deb 15 model back at Tokyo 2024 on Elliot Kogi’s feet. And again, for the past 20 months, we’ve seen multiple iterations of uh a few different Nike Dev Alphaloflies. The last one being this shoe, the Nike Dev 16141, which was worn by Connor Mans at Chicago and Alio Kachogi and Savon Hassan at New York City this past marathon racing season. And again, there’s been a lot of changes and tweaks to these shoes, but we haven’t really gotten a lot of detail as to what’s actually going on with these shoes. However, at the press events for New York City, both Elliot Kachogi and Safon Hassan said some concrete details about their shoes. The most concrete things that we’ve actually heard about the Alphaly dev prototypes to date. And of everything we heard both from Iliot and Safon, there’s really three concrete details they both directly said and one they both implied, especially Iliad. And the first one that we heard was that the Dev Alphaloflies that they were racing in were lighter. They didn’t say by how much, but I wouldn’t expect them to actually know how much either. But it’s good to know that the Alphaly is trending in that lighter direction. The Alphal 3 is a very lightweight shoe, but it’s also a fairly big shoe. There’s a lot of material in that shoe. And Nike, I think, did a masterful job of shaving every gram they could out of that shoe. So, take even even more weight out of the shoe for the Alpha Life 4, I think, is going to be really important because weight is really the next battleground for super shoes. And I think we’re seeing this rush to make them as lightweight as possible because that matters over the distance of the marathon. So, it’s really good to see Nike trending in that direction. The second thing that they both said about their Alphalide Dev prototypes was that there is a new carbon fiber plate in the shoe. Now, they didn’t really specify more than that. They just said there’s a new plate. Now, the most obvious new thing about the plate is that I think the geometry overall is probably change. And I think that’s one of the main things they’ve been testing over the past 20 months in all the various Alphalight Dev shoes that we’ve seen in the world majors. Now, the Vefly 4 went through a pretty drastic plate geometry change in 2025 where the midfoot in the heel especially got much closer to the foot overall made the Vaporfly 4 feel more aggressive than previous Vapor Flies, which is saying something. I would expect to see the same thing in the Alphal 4 next year. I think you’re going to have a much more aggressive midfoot and heel in that shoe, but I also would expect a new weave and a new layup and possibly some new thinking in the forefoot of that shoe. What we have seen about the Alphalide Dev shoes that Connor, Iliad, and Safon were wearing at Chicago, New York City was that there is more stack height in the forefoot. It does look like the air units are a little bit lower now. Kind of going back to what the Alphal one was. I talked about this in both my Chicago and New York City Superho observation videos. I’ll leave a link in the description to both those videos if you want to see more about that. But that’s also very interesting. So, I would expect the Elf of Life 4 to be a little bit more aggressive. And there’s another thing about the plate, which I’ll come back to in a second, that I think could be even more important. And lastly, they both confirm that there’s a new outsole on the Dev Alphaloflies they were racing. And that’s pretty obvious cuz we’ve seen that from all of the dev alphalies we’ve seen raced over the past 20 months. But what I’ve been hearing from leak channels is that it’s a revised or even new material that’s going to be lighter, grippier, and more durable. And I think durable is something really good to hear on a Nike racing shoe outsole because they always prioritize performance and grip, but maybe not always durability. So that’s really good to know. And the fourth thing which was implied by both Iliad and Safon across all their uh New York City weekend interviews, and Iliad actually implied this over a few interviews over the New York City weekend, was that there is a quote unquote new foam. Now, that can mean a whole bunch of different things. And where people talk about running shoes online, they’ve taken that all sorts of directions, but I think it means two things primarily. And that gets into kind of the bigger trend here that I’m looking for in 2026. Now, stepping back a bit, PBAX ZoomX, the ZoomX that’s available in the Alphaly, the Vaporfly, and the Street Fly 2 to my non- elite legs still at the end of 2025 is the best performing race foam available. It feels the best and I feel the fastest running in PBAX Zumx, the original one, the current formula of PBAX, not the training variant, but the actual race variant. But I will completely now admit that a lot of other brands have caught up and they’ve gotten very close to the performance of Peback ZoomX. I think especially in 2025, AS6 and Puma with their ATPU racing foams have gotten really close. And the advantage of an ATPU racing foam is that it should offer very very similar resilience to PBAX ZoomX, but in a much much more durable package. Now, this is where we get into kind of the two variants of foams that I think we’re probably going to see in 2026 from Nike if we’re going to see foam evolution, which I think a lot of people think we have to see from Nike starting next year. And that is a further update to the formula of ZoomX, making it more airy, lighter, and more resilient. And I think lighter is the key word there, because again, lightness of shoes and making shoes lightweight and getting to as light of a marathon racing shoe as possible is quite important. Again, that’s the new battleground with super shoes. The second is I could see Nike moving to a new chemistry for some of their race foams, but definitely their training foams, ATPU or some other material that we don’t know about. I think that may be inevitable. I don’t know if it’s next year, but I’m pretty confident if we’re going to see new foams from Nike, it’s going to be in the Alpha Fly 4. And I think we could see both of these. Now, I’ve been talking about elite versions of Nike racing shoes for some time on this channel, and it’s already a model that Nike has over in their track spikes with this shoe, the Dragonfly. There’s a Dragonfly 2, and there’s a Dragonfly 2 Elite. And the Elite is just a tweaked version of the base Dragonfly. In this case, it’s got a carbon fiber plate and some other lightweight tweaks in it to just make it a little bit more minmax for an elite level runner going for a PR or an Olympic world record. And I do think we’re going to see that in Nike’s road racing super shoes. And I think if we’re going to see it, it’s going to be the Alphal Fly 4 where we’re going to first start to see that. And the difference there, I think ultimately will be the foam. If Nike is going to really push current formula ZoomX, PEX ZoomX, I think they could go that route of creating a very performance first version of it, get rid of durability, very similar to what Adidas did with the Uba 1. Probably do a different manufacturing technique to really just minmax that shoe and make a shoe that’s as fast as Nike can make it, as light as Nike can make it, but maybe not the most durable shoe. Again, Adidas has shown that with the Evo series, and AS6 is now doing that with the Meta Speed Ray, though it’s not quite as stripped down as the Evo series from Adidas, but both Adidas and AS6 have that kind of elite level super shoe. I think Nike really will probably start to go that route as well. And then if there is an elite tier that’s really pushing the boundaries of performance in that sort of F1 way, then the consumer version can get the new foam, the new chemistry of foam if that’s something they’re going to do. And that’s why I do think we’re likely going to see a base model and elite model from Nike in their super shoes. And I think the Alphal 4 is really the place to start. The other thing that I think is quite interesting about the Alpha Fly 4 is through all of the leaked photos, and I can’t show any of these photos here because these are the true leaked photos. We saw Nike playing with a lot of different geometries in the Alphal Fly 4, including at least one or two generations that had a cantalvered plate going in front of the toe, very similar to what Puma did with the Fast R3. That could be another sort of differentiation between a base model and elite model. I think that cantal lever tower, the extended plate, I think is a complete gamecher for non- elite runners. Made a video about that. I’ll put a link in the description. But for elite runners, I think it’s a little bit more mixed. It’s more kind of 50/50. So, I could see an elite version of a Nike super shoe being a new really stripped down foam with like the classic plate geometry, especially in the toe, and then a consumer model maybe being something that um has more of that elongated plate or some other ideas as far as what the plate can do to help a non- elite runner who’s technically less efficient. It could also swing the other way. Maybe the new plate and the can lever toe gets to the elite version and then the base model just gets a updated foam. Again, this is the core thing I’m going to be looking for. New foams and an elite tier to their super shoes. I think again you’re it’s going to be hard to separate those two, but if we’re going to begin to see it, I think 2026 is when we’re going to see it. And the Alphalite 4 makes perfect sense to do that cuz that is the marquee marathon super shoe from Nike. And the third thing I’m really looking for from Nike in 2026 is again product related and it’s specific to the Pegasus. Now I’m a Pegasus runner. If you follow this channel, you know that. But new pegs are exciting to me. 2025 was the year of the Vomero of Nike really bringing that up to the general running public and making that sort of the base of Nike training. And 2026 will be the year of the Pegasus where Nike can really go into the responsive training shoe. That’s quite exciting. Now, in the leaks, we’ve been seeing a lot of stuff around both the Peg 42 and the Peg Plus 2. I can’t show you any of this here, but I’ll put a link to a Instagram account that does post some of these. Um, it’s probably not that secret to most of you, but go check that out if you want to see both the Peg 42 and the Peg Plus 2 in leaked photos. But what we have seen for the Peg 42 is probably one of the most exciting updates that I’ve been waiting for really since the Peg 36. And that is Nike seems to be bringing back the fulllength air zoom unit in the midsole of that shoe. Not like what the Peg Premium had in 2025, but going back to what the Peg 36 had with that true heel to toe air zoom bag. As you can see here from exploded views from Nike, that’s the PEG 36. 35 also had that. The PEG 3738 moved to that big, more aggressive 4-foot air unit. And the 3940 and that carried into the 401. You got the 4ft and heel unit. Two thinner air zoom units than what was in the 3738, but separated. Now, I’ve wanted to return to that fulllength air zoom unit for a long time cuz that’s going to make the peg feel smoother, less disjointed. The forefoot and heel air zoom units can feel a little bit rough, especially in the forefoot, cuz there’s a cavity in there. And if that airbag shifts around at all, it’s something you can feel quite a bit under the ball of your foot, which isn’t the most pleasant thing. I had a lot of problems with that in the PEG 38, a little bit in the PEG 39, but really since the PEG 40, I haven’t really run into that. And the PEG 41, I think, has been really problem free. I haven’t really seen a lot of people complaining about that at all. But that fulllength air zoom unit will just make the Pegasus feel more smooth, more neutral when you’re running into it. You’ll still get the flex, you’ll still get the ground feel. It’s just going to feel less disjointed, less kind of blocky. You’re not going to feel that kind of pop of the air zoom unit directly under foot when you hit it just right. It’s just going to always be there no matter where you’re landing in the shoe. I think that’s going to bring much more usability to the Peg 42. It also seems like the Peg 42 is really staying to what the base or icon peg is in the overall tiered lineup. And that’s also good to see too because this is the first sort of generation two that we’re seeing in Nike’s new tiered system. So, the fact that the Pegasus, the base Pegasus is going to stay sort of the base peg, I’m really happy to see that. I know a lot of people want more innovative pegs, they want more, you know, super foams and all that stuff, but that’s what the other two tiers are, especially the plus tier. And with the plus tier, it seems like the Peg Plus 2 is getting some pretty sizable changes. Mainly, it’s getting an exposed air zoom unit similar to what actually is in the Pegasus Premium in the forefoot of that shoe. Now, last year I made some Franken shoes around the Peg 41, kind of talking about where I thought the future of the Peg 41 could go. Mainly this one. This is the Volt Launch colorway with an Alphal AirPod in the forefoot. Here’s another Franken Peg that I made where it had kind of a chunk out of the Pegasus Premium in one of the prototypes of the Peg 41. Honestly, these two shoes aren’t really far off from what we’re seeing in the Peg Plus 2 leaks. And that’s going to really set the Pegg Pegasus Plus 2 in a very different direction from the base model because the Peg 41 and the Peg Plus, there’s a foam difference. There is a feel difference, but it’s it’s subtle. Unless you run a lot in pegs, you’re not going to really notice that. But what we’re seeing in the Peg 42 and the Peg Plus 2 leaks, it’s going to be a sizable difference. And I think that’s really positioning the PEG plus two to be something that’s kind of a mix of a PEG 37 and a Nike Tempo Next%, which should make a lot of people happy because we’re seeing a little bit more stack height in the PEG plus two as well. Again, I think it’s pushing the performance and responsiveness of a Pegasus really further in the direction that it needs to go. Even getting more into a true tempo trainer, which would be quite exciting. Again, it’s not going to be replacement for the tempo next percent, but it seems to be going that direction, and I think that should make a lot of people take notice and be excited about a Pegasus for the first time in a long time. Now, there hasn’t been anything about a Peg Premium 2. I don’t know if I would really expect that next year, but I do expect one, and I really am curious how Nike evolves that curved fulllength air zoom unit. Again, I think some of that is going into the Peg Plus 2, but we’ll see where we net out with a Peg Premium 2 in 2026. I also think there could be some other surprises. We have seen leaked uh Vomero 19s. I They didn’t look much different than the Vomero 18, but they were a different shoe. I don’t know if I’m expecting to see Vomero updates in 2026. I kind of think they’re going on alternating years for those, but who knows? I also have seen a couple random just unknown Nikes and the leak channels. So there could be some further Tempo shoes and some other trainers in the works. So again, lots of product stuff to be looking forward to in 2026. Overall, I think Nike had a very solid 2025. Wasn’t the best brand of the year, but I think what they needed to do is get their training shoes on the radar of most runners. And I think they succeeded with that with the Vomero series, all three of them. I think that is on the map of just general running and that’s great. Nike really needed that. They needed to emphasize that they do training shoes, they innovate in the training space, not just the racing space. But again, looking forward into 2026, I think they need to show that leadership and that innovation on the racing side. I think we’re seeing the pieces line up for that as I walk through in this video. And as a Nike runner, I think it’s quite exciting. I think all of that is really getting to that corporate turnaround that has been going on for a while now coming up on two years and again that innovation super cycle that I mentioned that they talked about almost 2 years ago as well. I think we’re seeing the fruits of all of that stuff moving forward and I think Nike as a brand is in a really good position moving into 2026 and I think there’s some exciting product ahead. Thank you for making it to the end of the video. If you want to support what I do here, check out sagosrunning.com for merch or click the join button below. I recently updated my membership perk, so check that out if you’re interested. Neither of those options are good for you. Leave a comment, leave a like because it helps this channel continue to grow, which I always appreciate. And with that, I’ll catch you in the next one.