Puma's Fast-R Nitro Elite 3 running shoes are made for London marathon

This year’s London marathon takes place on Sunday, April 27. If you’re lacing up for it, you could do much worse than pick up a pair of Puma’s just-announced Fast-R Nitro Elite 3 running shoes.

Puma’s big claim for these new trainers is they can increase running efficiency by 3.15% per cent. And that’s a big deal in the world of performance shoes.

This is apparently backed-up by a study. And the Puma Fast-R Nitro Elite 3 were not being compared to a pair of Dunlop Green Flash trainers, but other top-tier super shoes from the likes of Adidas and Nike.

We’ll be able to see soon enough how well the pair really fares out in the wild too, as Puma athletes will wear the Puma Fast-R Nitro Elite 3 during both the Boston marathon, on April 21, and the London marathon a week later.

Fancy a pair? We wager they might be tricky to get hold of ahead of London’s marathon, and are only due to hit select stores on April 25.

In classic super shoe fashion, they don’t come cheap either, at £260. That’s only a little less than the £285 Nike Alphafly 3.

Want the vital statistics? The Puma Fast-R Nitro Elite 3 are 40mm stack height shoes, the maximum allowed by the World Athletics association for road race events, and have an 8mm drop.

They are incredibly light at 170g, for a UK size 8. That represents a frankly incredible 95g decrease in weight compared to the last generation, which were already world-class shoes.

The Puma Fast-R Nitro Elite 3 are carbon plated trainers, and use a new version of Puma’s Nitro Elite foam.

They also look, well, a bit less mad than the last two mainline pairs in this Fast-R family. Sure, they still have the funny-looking lip up front, and a highly sculpted foam midsole. But fore and aft sections are no longer two separate foamy islands, making the Puma Fast-R Nitro Elite 3 look less alien.

The Puma Fast-R Nitro Elite 3 will be available in limited numbers at Puma’s Boston Marathon Experience this weekend. But for the rest of us, April 25 is the realistic availability date.

• This is the the world’s most popular running shoe