The first Pegasus Plus was an interesting shoe with an awkward problem. Nike had taken a full ZoomX midsole, put it under a lightweight upper and priced it as a premium daily trainer, and then wrapped the whole thing in a last so narrow and low-volume that a large share of runners simply could not wear it. The second generation, out this month, reads as a direct answer to that. It is built on a new, wider last with more room across the forefoot, and it costs $170, which is $20 less than the shoe it replaces.
The specification has moved as well. The Pegasus Plus 2 runs a 38mm heel and 28mm forefoot for a 10mm drop, and weighs 9.1oz in men's sizing and 7.7oz in women's. The midsole is a softer, more resilient ZoomX formulation than the original used, and the most visible change is a forefoot Air Zoom unit that sits exposed in the outsole. Nike is claiming 18 per cent more energy return than the first Pegasus Plus, and a shoe roughly 10 per cent lighter than the standard Pegasus 42.
Those claims should be read as manufacturer figures rather than independent measurement, and energy return numbers in particular are notoriously sensitive to the test protocol used to generate them. What is easier to verify on the run is the character the combination produces: a softer, more compliant ride than the original, with the Air unit adding a distinct snap under the forefoot that the pure-foam version lacked. It is a livelier shoe than its stack height suggests.
The fit change matters more than any of it. Reviewers who struggled with the first version have been near-unanimous that the Pegasus Plus 2 is more welcoming from the first step in, and a shoe that fits a broader range of feet is a fundamentally different commercial proposition. It also repositions the model within Nike's own line, sitting between the Pegasus 42 as a cushioned daily trainer and the Vaporfly as a race shoe, which is exactly the super-trainer slot the category has grown into over the past three years.
At $170 the Pegasus Plus 2 is not cheap, but it is cheaper than its predecessor and cheaper than most of the shoes it now competes with. Runners looking for a single trainer that can absorb easy mileage and still handle a tempo session without feeling flat have a genuinely strong option here. The caveat is durability: exposed Air units and soft ZoomX have historically been the two places where Nike's lightweight trainers wear first, and there is not yet enough mileage on this shoe to know how it holds up past a few hundred miles.