ADIDAS ADIZERO ADIOS PRO 5 DROPS ITS CARBON RODS

The Adidas Adizero Adios Pro 5 weighs an average of 177 grams, 23 grams lighter than the Adios Pro 4 it replaces, and it launched globally on September 22, 2026 through adidas.com, the adidas app and select retailers in a Turbo, Black and Red colorway. The number that matters more than the launch date is what adidas removed to get there. The brand retired the carbon rod system that had run through every Adios Pro since the line began and replaced it with Energyrim, the rim technology that first appeared on the record setting Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3.

23 Grams Come Off the Sidewall

Energyrim is a full length rim of carbon infused material that wraps the outer edge of the midsole instead of running through it as discrete rods. Adidas says the shape lets more Lightstrike Pro foam sit directly under the foot, which the brand credits for 9 percent more energy return than the Adios Pro 4 delivered. The rim still tunes stiffness through the stride, guiding the foot through toe off the way the rod system did, so the shoe keeps the propulsion without carrying the added weight of individual rods. That tradeoff, foam where the rods used to be, is where the 23 grams came from, and it is why adidas can call this the biggest structural change to the Adios Pro line since it began.

Adidas Already Broke the Hundred Gram Barrier

Earlier in 2026, Adidas already broke the hundred gram barrier with the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3, a 99 gram racing flat that swapped a traditional carbon plate for Lightrods, a glass fiber propulsion system set inside Lightstrike Ultra foam and built for elite marathon competition at major fall races. Stephan Scholten, adidas VP Product, said in the brand's launch release that every record the company has helped athletes achieve has taught it more, and that the Adios Pro 5 turns those lessons into what he called the brand's most advanced race day shoe yet, built to help more runners chase their own fastest times. The Pro 5 is not a lighter Evo 3 wearing a cheaper price tag. It is the shoe adidas expects most of its marathon field, the qualifiers and the club runners, to actually buy and log training miles in before race day arrives.

Lightstrike Pro Is Not Lightstrike Ultra

Lightstrike Pro is the foam under the Adios Pro 5, stacking up to 39 millimeters at the heel, and it is a different compound from the Lightstrike Ultra that cushions the Evo Pro 3. Ultra is tuned for one fast race at the lightest weight adidas can certify. Pro is tuned to hold its rebound over the miles a training block, or a slower marathon, actually demands. The split runs across the rest of adidas's running range too. The Hyperboost Edge, released earlier this year as the first full reset of the Boost platform since 2013, runs a third compound entirely, Hyperboost Pro, built for daily trainers rather than race day. Three foams, three jobs, one company deciding none of them should have to do double duty anymore.

The Upper Changed As Much As the Sole

The Adios Pro 5 upper is built on LightLock 2.0, adding ventilated zones, internal support bands and a reworked heel meant to hold the foot in place at marathon pace over two, three or four hours. Adi Dassler built the company on the idea that a shoe earns its name by solving a specific athlete's problem rather than by looking the part, and the upper rework reads like that same instinct carried forward a century later. Nobody asked adidas for a new name on the upper. But a rim that redistributes weight also changes where a foot needs to be held, and the support bands exist to answer that, not to decorate the shoe. It matches the brand's own description of the shoe as built for greater comfort, stability and grip, sustaining speed deeper into a marathon rather than only at the start.

Marathon Racers Get the Training Version First

Adidas priced the Adios Pro 5 at 275 dollars, 20 dollars above the Adios Pro 4's 255, and positioned it as the shoe a marathon field trains and races in, not the 500 dollar Evo Pro 3 reserved for record attempts. That gap is the real story of the drop. A 99 gram super shoe is a marketing headline built for one podium. A 177 gram shoe that thousands of amateur qualifiers will actually lace up in Chicago, New York and Boston this fall is the product adidas is betting its marathon season on. Twenty three grams and 9 percent more energy return will not turn a club runner into an elite one, but they are the difference between finishing a marathon in the shoe a runner trained in for months and finishing it in one tried on for the first time at the start line.