Nike LED Track Pits Runners Against Their Biggest Competitor – Themselves

Thanks to 200 meters of LED screens placed around Nike Unlimited Stadium in Manila, participants can race against a digital avatar of themselves that simulates a human runner.

Writer: Carly Terwilliger

The Nike Unlimited Stadium located in Manila, Philippines gives runners a whole new way to beat their best time. Thanks to 200 meters of LED screens placed around the running shoe-shaped track, participants can race against a digital avatar of themselves that simulates a human runner.

Here’s how it works: a radio frequency identification sensor on your sneaker records your pace as you take a lap on the track. That’s the pace at which your doppelganger will run alongside you.

The LED installation, which dominates an entire Manila city block, was created by global advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty’s (BBH). The agency’s past work includes hacking a building in Jakarta, Indonesia during a race to display real-time data such as speed and place on its exterior. And virtual athletes seem to be something of a specialty of BBH’s, as it promoted the Nike Hypervenom shoe in Bangkok by creating interactive soccer matches where people faced off against digital defenders.

The shape of the track mimics the sole of Nike’s new LunarEpic running shoe and features an array of colors and the same circular drawings found at the bottom of the LunarEpic.

So far, Manila is the only place to experience the Nike Unlimited Stadium, and the swoosh is keeping tight-lipped about its duration as well as the possibility of additional locations.