Under Armour Flow Velociti Elite review: Almost a premier race day shoe

Under Armour Velociti Elite: One minute review

The Under Armour Flow Velociti Elite is another running shoe that wants to be on your feet when you want to run your fastest. Unfortunately, it's a little bit too expensive and not high-performance enough to merit inclusion on our list of the best running shoes. 

Like Nike’s Vaporfly 3 or the Asics Metaspeed Sky+, the Elite aims to give you that speedy feeling over longer distances, grabbing features from UA’s own impressive Flow Velociti Wind 2 along with on-trend race shoe features like a carbon plate, a more race-friendly midsole wrapped up in a light design to make it ideal for speedier runs.

Like fellow top-tier racing shoes, the Elite does not come cheap. It’s coming to play with the big boys, but does it manage to give Nike, Adidas, Asics and company a run for their money? Well, perhaps not quite.

Under Armour Flow Velociti Elite: Specifications

Under Armour Flow Velociti Elite: Price and availability

• $250 in the US
• £220 in the UK
• AU$300 in Australia

The Under Armour Flow Velociti Elite launched in April 2023 with a hefty £220/$250 price tag, putting it firmly up against carbon racing shoes like the Nike Vaporfly 3, Adidas Adio Pro 3, Asics Metaspeed Sky+ and the Endorphin Pro 3.  

Surprisingly, they're slightly better value in Australia, at only AU$300 on the Under Armour store at time of writing. However, it's still a lot of money to drop on a speed shoe, especially when there are better out there.

• Value score: 3/5

Under Armour Flow Velociti Elite: Design

• Mesh upper
• Flow midsole and outsole in one
• Dual-density midsole

For the Elite, Under Armour has clearly taken a lot of design cues from its Velociti Wind and then made things considerably lighter to make it better suited for longer, quicker runs.

You’re dealing with an 8mm heel-to-drop matching the drop on Nike’s Vaporfly 3. It’s 36mm at the heel and 28mm at the toes, so it actually comes in lower than Nike’s latest super shoe. 

There’s a mesh Warp upper, which is thin and has a cross hatch-style look that lets you see into the shoes in sections and is supremely breathable, while the lockdown it delivers from the laces, tongue feels good for speedier sessions.

Below that is a lot of new and slightly new things from Under Armour. Like the Wind, it uses Under Armour’s latest Flow midsole with that foam forming the outsole of the shoe to reduce the overall weight of the shoe.

Along with a full-length carbon plate is a new version of its Flow foam and a Pebax foam that provide the bread to this midsole sandwich. That midsole makeup aims to deliver the kind of explosive, propulsive and excitable ride while delivering high energy returns to make it well suited for longer distances. There’s also a TPE sock liner included to add to that promised bouncy ride while that foam runs into the outsole promising to offer a strong grip and make it a shoe that can handle a lot of use.

All in all, it’s a shoe that looks fit for running fast, feels great to wear and Under Armour has pulled out some big features to help it match up to the competition. So in the design department, it’s got a lot of things right here.

• Design score: 5/5 

Under Armour Flow Velociti Elite: Performance

• A stable carbon plate racing shoe
• Outsole grip is great and feels durable
• Felt slightly firmer on longer runs, lacks some pop

The first good thing to report about the Elite is that it gets a hell of lot right with the fit. I had mine in a UK size 8 and weight-wise it dropped in at 220g. That puts it at the heavier end of the carbon racing shoe clan, but it does still feel like a pleasingly light shoe to go quick in. The room up front at the toes was ideal, the midfoot hold was good and there was no sort of slipping at the heel.

Having run in the Velociti Wind, I had some expectations of what the Elite’s Flow midsole would feel like and hoped it would be more of the same but better. What you notice first is that this is a shoe that feels very stable to run in and that’s a good thing. That’s not the case for most racing shoes in this price range, so it was good to see that even when you ease off or run a mixture of speeds, the Elite can handle it.

When I picked things up on the pace front, the Elite felt pretty smooth, agile, but when I was searching for the same kind of energetic, propulsive ride I’ve experienced with early testing of Nike’s Vaporfly 3 and longer term testing of the Asics Metaspeed Sky+ and Saucony Endorphin Pro 3, I just didn’t get the same feeling here. 

There’s no great rocker feeling you get with some of those other shoes mentioned, where you can feel like you’re rolling through at speed with assistance. That doesn’t feel like the same story on the Elite. I also felt the firmer side of that midsole on longer runs, particularly near the toes. 

On shorter, sharper runs or intervals, the Elite felt at its best, but if you’re not a fan of a slightly firmer feeling shoe, you might have problems getting on board with what the Elite feels to run in.

The outsole remains a highlight move by UA on its latest shoes and it feels nice and grippy on the Elite. When you hit that ground you feel nicely connected to it and there’s been no terrible signs of wear after hitting 50 km running in it, so it feels like it’s well built for a generous amount of training and race time.

There’s clearly a good shoe in the Elite, but whether it matches the similarly priced competition is up for debate. To me, it felt more like a speedy daily trainer as opposed to a shoe I’d want to turn to for a long-distance race day chasing down a PB, but there are plenty of those for better value. I just didn’t see enough in those longer runs that convinced me that I’d grab it over a super shoe from Nike, Asics or Saucony where you just get a more energetic and propulsive feeling overall.

There are definitely some things UA has got right here. It looks like a great racing shoe and fits like one too, and trying to introduce something to its own Flow shoe tech was a positive move. Ultimately though, it doesn’t quite pay off with a racing shoe that costs big money and didn’t blow us away on every run.

• Performance score: 3.5/5

Under Armour Flow Velociti Elite: Should I buy?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

First reviewed: June 2023