On the day it was announced in fall 2024, Adidas‘ hottest running shoe of the moment was not the more thrilling of the two models unveiled that day.

The Adidas Adizero Evo SL was revealed alongside the Adizero Adios Pro 4, the former as a super trainer and the latter as full-on super shoe for race day. Both cater to speed and feature similar geometry for the Lightstrike Pro+ foam underfoot, as well as identically bold branding with an oversized Three Stripes motif bleeding onto the midsoles, but the Adios Pro 4 had the edge because of its carbon fiber rods and 11 percent lower weight.

Today, it’s the Evo SL, the technically less advanced shoe, that’s putting up astonishing numbers for Adidas. Chief executive officer Bjørn Gulden announced in the company’s final earnings call for fiscal 2025 that the Evo SL is nearing 10 million pairs sold.

By nature, the Evo SL is more approachable than the Adios Pro 4 (or any other super shoe) because few runners are actually at the marathon level. That alone doesn’t fully explain the success of the trainer, however. It isn’t just Adidas’ best seller — it was the consensus pick as the best running shoe of 2025.

Built as a super trainer, a category catering to speedy workouts, the Evo SL has been praised for its versatility. Few, if any, shoes can do it all in an era brands emphasize maintaining a quiver of options for different types of workouts. The Evo SL, though, challenges the notion and holds up to daily training, tempo runs, intervals and more.

Lia Porcelli — an ardent runner, co-founder of the creative agency Mutual Friends and a former five-year employee in Nike’s marketing department — wants to try the shoe for a marathon.

“I’m obsessed with them,” Porcelli told Footwear News. “They have enough structure but they’re still one of the lightest shoes I’ve ever had. I feel like I can do anything in them.”

The Evo SL’s appeal extends beyond running. The shoe is also being picked up for lifestyle wear, as non-runners appreciate its comfort and an aesthetic that’s at once simple but bold. And for those that want less simplicity, the expansion of colorways available and the addition of spinoff models have added visual complexity.

The Evo SL got a limited launch in fall 2024 before its wide release came the following spring. In the next fall then came the Evo SL Woven, which features a woven upper and gusseted tongue, and the Evo SL ATR, which can handle moderate terrain and weather with a water-resistant upper and lightly lugged outsole. Just added this month was the Evo SL Exo, which adds a taped exoskeleton to its upper for better containment and as another avenue for color-blocking.

Matt Powell, senior advisor at BCE consulting and a longtime athletic expert, believes these offshoots are crucial to keeping the Evo SL relevant — and that the efficacy of this approach is much stronger than simply trotting out new colorways.

“If you think about the Samba, what’s kept that shoe alive are the variations,” Powell said. “The core shoe doesn’t have nearly the same heat, but the Mary Janes, sneakerinas, floral materials, animal hides and all that — that’s what’s kept the Samba live. If you do other variations, you give a person a reason to put a second one in their closet, not because it’s pink.”

Further evidence of the Evo SL’s appeal? Specialty run stores and boutiques are both stocking the shoe, from Kith and Lapstone, Slam Jam and Lapstone & Hammer to Brooklyn Running Co., Commonwealth Running and Heartbreak Hill Running Company.

The number of collaborators on the shoe isn’t yet as prolific, but so far Pharrell, digital sneaker cataloger Hartcopy and fashionable new running brand Hermanos Koumori have put their stamp on the shoe.

Heartbreak Hill is seeing both running and lifestyle customers seek the Evo SL in its locations, and co-founder Justin Burdon credits Adidas for doing the heavy lifting in marketing toward the latter so that the specialty store doesn’t need to do anything differently.

Previously, Adidas never held a spot among the best-selling shoes for Heartbreak Hill. But since the Evo SL launch, it’s consistently been among the top ten.

“It was almost like they were looking to the competition and trying to design against what was working in the marketplace,” Burdon said. “It is kind of like a whole new concept.”

Adidas didn’t invent the super trainer, and the category is filled with options both with and without plated elements. Where the shoe stands out is with its $150 price point, much lower than other praised non-plated models such as the Asics Superblast 3 ($210) or Puma Mag Max Nitro ($180).

There can also be a sea of sameness for running shoes in general, but no one will accuse the Evo SL of wading in it.

“It’s a very distinctive look,” Powell said. “It doesn’t look like anybody else’s shoe that’s out there.”

While the style shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon, Adidas has another new shoe just days away that could succeed for many of the same reasons. The Hyperboost Edge is positioned as another super trainer, but one that fills a gap in Adidas’ lineup for maximum cushioning. It also showcases a significant material innovation in Hyperboost Pro, a distinct supercritical foam formulation in a pebbled form just like Adidas’ highly influential Boost.

“With the Evo SL we said, ‘What if we took the stiffening element out, forced a bit lower stack height and then tried to build a super trainer out of it,” Patrick Nava, Adidas general manager of running, said in an interview on the Hyperboost Edge. “That’s how we started playing with this idea of Hyperboost, and we ended up with a pebbled version that gives us an incredibly light weight with a brilliant energy returning solution.”

Before the Evo SL, Adidas’ last big hit made for running came when the first Ultraboost released in 2015, so it’s only fitting that it’s next big proposition borrows ideas from both.

Knocking off the Evo SL from its mantle could be a big challenge for competitors. It will also be a big feat to beat the brand in marathons — seven of the twelve World Major Marathon winners in 2025 wore either the Adios Pro Evo 1 or 2. Should the Hyperboost Edge follow suit, that could mean three Adidas franchises dominating running.