Top 3 Marathon Racing Shoes of 2023

Matt, David, and Andrea share their favorite marathon shoes of the year.

Check out our signature stability shoe guide to learn more about how we discuss footwear: https://www.doctorsofrunning.com/p/guide-to-stability-running-shoes-2021.html

Find us on social!
https://www.facebook.com/doctorsofrunning
https://www.instagram.com/doctorsofrunning/
Tweets by DoctorsRunning
https://www.linkedin.com/company/doctors-of-running/

We are a group of physical therapists and runners interested in the art and science of running shoes. Learn more by visiting doctorsofrunning.com

Yeah let’s do marathon or longdistance stuff first so David went first wait who went first last time David a great first yeah all right David you are first now I am first now yeah all right so um I have three pairs of this shoe so they were

Saying earlier like if you go and you end up buying a pair chances are you like the shoe yeah um for the marathon I’m going sakon indorfin Elite I feel like that’s not a surprise I feel like a lot of people know I like this shoe um especially for the marathon distance

Half Marathon distance too but uh very rhythmic like I think the power on HG midsole I like it better than the PB midsole because I found the Endorphin Pro 3 to be a little bit kind of soft compliant mushy I I kind of I didn’t I

Liked the shoe but I just I couldn’t see myself racing in it and all of that changed with the Endorphin Elite and they are very different shoes like they’re similar in some ways but they are definitely different uh much sharper toes spring in the Endorphin Elite up

Front so you get kind of get this kind of forward rolling all the time and then that HG midsole I do feel like it’s bouncier but it’s firmer it doesn’t compress as much like it doesn’t feel as compliant uh and then they also have that just kind of like a wide heel

Relatively for a racing shoe and then it still streamlines into the midfoot so it kind of still gives you kind of a speedy feel and then it widens out into the forefoot and great for just falling into Rhythm and just staying there I mean like finding that controlled speed

Uptempo type effort uh and the lockd Down’s good too I feel like especially for Marathon there’s plenty of room for swelling accommodation for the foot and the lock down through the tongue and the lacing system it holds you in there if you are sensitive to heal counters there

Really isn’t one there’s this tiny little thing right here that gives you a little bit of support on the back to hold it but besides that really it’s just kind of like the very shallow heel cup in the sidewalls from the foam so um it’s nice it locks down good you can

Fall into Rhythm and just kind of go to work for a long time and so if I can forget about what’s on my feet that’s usually a good thing and that’s kind of what this does for me sweet Andre uh this will also be of no surprise to anyone who has ever listened

To me talk about me marathoning the Nike vaporfly 3 I’ve run two marathons in it this year one half and lots of workouts um it’s just it’s the best Marathon Sho I’ve worn um I really like the update that they made on it over version two specifically Shifting the 4-foot

Platform medially at first when I heard that they did that I thought oh they made it more stable I’m going to hate it but for whatever reason that shift actually made it more comfortable in the two and also in the one I did get just like a little bit of soreness just

Behind my first MTP and like not enough to not wear it but with version three I don’t get that at all and this is the first marathon shoe where my feet don’t hurt the day after a marathon and that is remarkable so um what else do I love

About it one it’s light uh five .6 ooun I think for women’s size eight um they improve the fit of the upper too over versions one and two this mesh kind of like stands up a little bit more on its own so it has a little more volume than

One and two I always felt like the previous uppers they’d like crease a little bit and there would always be some sort of like irritation point on the dorsum my foot and that doesn’t happen at all in this shoe um traction is great on wet roads which which is

Really important because you never know what conditions are going to be on race day uh just yeah it it does everything for me I get more miles out of it than you would expect for a super shoe this one I think I stopped using after like

160 or 170 I was debating whether to use it for uh Philly after using it in grandma’s and then training in it for my long runs but I did like a 20 mile in it like six weeks before Philly and it just felt like the midfoot had a little more

Give than I liked so I got a fresh pair and oh yeah that’s the good old vaporfly that I remember so um good durability you can see the outsole I really didn’t chew it up that much um this is my old pair that has like 170 miles on it so

Yeah hands down Marathon shoe of the Year for me sweet I will say I should probably wait to do this for 5K 10K but the change in the 4 foot pattern does make it work a lot better on softer surfaces so I know a lot of kids out

There use this for cross country I’ve done some where I’ve raced my students and I picked those I was doing a two mile race and found that the attaction was actually plenty good for dirt and soft surfaces it’s not a trail shoe by any means but if you need a little bit

More traction it’s definitely improved from the prior version however I’m going to go and be super Bing and and have the same thing as David as the Endorphin Elite if I was going to run a marathon this is the shoe I would grab and there’s a several reasons why and David

Alluded to pretty much all of them where I personally as much bounce as there is in this foam I like something that just feels like on the firmer side of that and so this has it it’s not a firm shoe by any means but it just feels like the

Bounce is a little more controlled and not out of your face but you’ll run this and go I don’t know where this is coming from Pace Wise It’s very you know it’s a great shoe it feels fine actually doing a warm-up in but once you start running

Fast it’s this shoe really comes alive and it’s been really great though for me this is very stable neutral as at least as stable neutral as a super trainer like this or super racer I’m sorry can do where it’s got sidewalls that wrap around the entire length of the shoe the

Midfoot is filled in and the lateral forefoot is not the base is really wide heel does a really great job so I this has been a really great shoe for me I will say the one caveat is the traction isn’t very good as I found on track and

Wet surfaces but I live in Southern California so that usually hasn’t been too much of a problem but this kind of blows everything else out of the water in terms of like just a shoe that I kept grabbing so a lot of majority of my races this year even though this is a

Marathon shoe and I’ve really raced like 5K 10K stuff it’s just I’ve grabbed this going I oh my like oh no a high school student showed up I don’t want to get my butt kicked I’m grabbing the Endorphin Elite so that worked out sometimes it didn’t work out so well recently but

That’s also CU I chose I didn’t you know what I should have chosen this one for the recent rates I did maybe if I I wouldn’t have lost but you know there’s that so that that’s totally what it is the only reason not that I was totally

Like not in the shape relevant to be able to compete against the guys that showed up but yeah endorphin Elite is definitely my like long distance Super Shoe racing shoe of the Year all right what about Runner ups for all of you yeah runner up for me was pretty easy um

My Runner Up’s the vaporfly 3 so uh um I agree completely with Andrea uh those that have been following us like know I didn’t really like the vaporfly to that much and I couldn’t figure out why people liked it so much I was like I was

Like this thing is super tight the heel slips around like it the the upper crinkly right like the traction is doesn’t even feel that good it’s like kind of hoofy and like kind of almost like scratchy I was like I just I didn’t get it I tried I tried to give it

Multiple chances I’m like am I missing something and I just never came around to it and um vaporfly 3 changed a lot of that so I know it’s been kind of a polarizing shoe because of that because some people did really like the vaporfly two and didn’t like the three as much

But for me them shifting that millimeter medially on the forefoot there was huge that helped stabilize some of the shoe that upper is way more Airy and a lot more volume it doesn’t feel like it’s encroaching that midfoot or the volume’s too low in the for foot like I would get

In the second version and the materials around it are just a lot more comfortable in general like it just feels nicer on your foot and then traction as well I mean that definitely was noticeable I would say like if you were on wet surfaces right now this is

Probably one of the better maybe the best outso traction you can get on a super shoe at the moment uh without sacrificing a bunch of weight so uh vaporfly 3 was good and it kind of came down as I was deciding for the marathon I’m like what am I going to wear you

Know and then I came down to just honestly Comfort I was like oh I’m just I feel better in the Endorphin Elite came as simple as that but yeah I’d say it’s a little more Speedy though oh got it Andrea well um since you guys both chose the Endorphin Elite as your top

Shoe I’ve got to say I love how that shoe rides to I just had a couple fit issues with it like I feel like I was between sizes in it so my foot would slide around and the little pillow around the Achilles just felt like it

Angled in a little too much for me uh but like the ride of that shoe is amazing so maybe with a little tweaks version two maybe it’ll move up my list but um I appreciate your choices but for me my runner-up shoe is a shoe I have

Not run a marathon in yet but I very likely will run a marathon in it in a couple months and that is the mauno Rebellion Pro one uh this shoe is very uh different than the other shoes we’ve been talking about it’s got this pretty crazy heel bevel here um when I first

Got it for testing I was like how on Earth am I going to run in that Sho and David you know over and over would be like it’s fine you’ll be fine I remember this something he said I literally would say mess it’s fine you’ll be all right and he is right

Like this it makes it look like there’s no heal but really like especially because I land further forward like where the bevel hits it just feels so natural for me to land and then roll forward and it doesn’t have an aggressive rocker feeling which is kind

Of crazy based on how it looks but it just really lines up nicely with my mechanics um so I’ve been doing you know some of my workouts and long runs in this uh heading into Osaka I’m basically dep deciding between version one and version two which uh is not a 2023 shoe

Um it’ll be released uh in early 2024 little different changes to the geometry in the upper but yeah this people will look at this shoe and be like no way I can’t run in it but as David told me and he was right it’s fine so I would definitely encourage people

To try it out because it’s it has definitely surprised me with how much I enjoy using it for definitely Marathon effort running faster and it feels a little weird cuz I definitely get more up on my toes when I run faster like even 10K Pace but like Marathon or half

Marathon pace this is this is really nice yeah I did a half in that shoe I remember that’s right yeah yeah um it’s a nice shoe I mean it was honestly like one of those ones that kind of just missed the list you know yeah too many good Super Shoes

Yeah I like it so I didn’t know what to expect with this so for those who can’t see my runnerup shoe is the Hulen rocket X2 and so there’s a couple reasons for this it didn’t it wasn’t the fastest shoe which is why I frequently chose the Endorphin Elite over it but there

Actually was a race that I did do in this shoe that I actually really really enjoyed so my biggest thing for this is if you like a lower drop shoe even though it’s a 5 millim drop it does feel very low right and I think that’s

Because the toast the the for fo rocker is a little late so it makes it feel like almost like you’re kind of getting over a speed bump which for me when I’m getting on my toes and moving one and move quick actually feels good but this stable neutral wise is also phenomenal

The sidewalls come up pretty high it does a really good job sols fair like fairly like relatively doesn’t narrow throughout and then just a nice aggressive ride that I’ve liked for both 5K efforts which is my typical resistance and longer efforts where I’ve just wanted something I could trust and

Have it get out of the way so I think Hoka in their first real super shoe has actually done a really really great job the one thing I would ask of them is go can you make this a little bit lighter first of all because there’s rumor that

There is a basically Hoka alphafly equivalent that they might be working on but I I really enjoyed this and also there was the volume of the shoe is quite low so I do like it but the one thing is that it does feel a little bit

Low on the shoe spy a little spiky is and then this upper like weirdly sweats I don’t know what it is like when I’m running in it is I get this like kind of weird like like foam on top of it and I haven’t figured out what that I don’t

Know maybe this is like a pathological problem with me and I shouldn’t be saying this but yeah the shoe kind of like there’s like this weird white foam that shows up sometimes and I’m like I don’t know what that is it’s not me I don’t think but just some just some

Things some mild needs of refinement also durability has been really really good so this is my runner up didn’t quite beat the Endorphin Elite but it’s also a really awesome attempt from hoko that I got to give him credit for and excited see where they go now they’re using packs