Coaching · Chat · Strava
A coach you talk to. Not a dashboard.
First 10K or chasing a personal best, OpenPacemaker reads your runs, tells you what they actually mean in plain English, and reshapes your plan when life gets in the way. A real coach, in a chat you already have open.
Free for everyone · ~5 min setup · no card
Try a conversation
See the coach in action.
Pick who you're training as, then tap a question. It's a sample chat. The real coach reads your own Strava history.
Morning Alex. First half marathon, exciting. Ask me anything, or tap a question below.
Your first race
Not mad at all. That's about 16 weeks away, which is plenty. We'll start where you are: three runs a week, almost all easy, with one that slowly gets longer.
I'll set the first week up now, and you can change anything you don't like. Want to pick a date together?
Coming back carefully
Logged. You had this back in March and one easy week settled it. Let's do the same: I'll keep this week easy and swap Tuesday's intervals for a steady run.
Tell me how it feels tomorrow and we'll take it from there.
When life gets in the way
Yes. Tomorrow becomes 30 minutes easy, and I'll move the long run to Saturday. You lose a little volume but the session that matters stays in. Don't sweat the missed days.
Chasing a PB
8.4 km at 4:19/km, average HR 178, and a clear positive split: 4:02 early, fading to 4:38 by the end.
You're not losing fitness. You stacked two hard days too close together, so you spent it twice. Easy tomorrow, and I mean properly easy.
More than one sport
Seen both, nice mix. That ride added real aerobic load on top of your running, so I've kept tomorrow's run genuinely easy rather than stacking another hard day on tired legs.
you don't have to ask
Most tools wait for you to open them. OpenPacemaker reaches out first: a short read in the morning, a word after a hard session, a weekly review you never had to request. It holds your plan and rewrites it as your week actually goes.
It also learns how you like to be coached. Some athletes want it blunt, some want a gentler hand, and it adapts. And it puts safety first: if something looks risky, a niggle that's escalating or fatigue that's gone too deep, it tells you, even on a quiet day.
It actually remembers you
Quite a lot by now: your goal of a sub-1:45 half, the right-Achilles history, that you prefer hard sessions on Tuesdays, and that work travel usually eats your Wednesdays.
Want the full picture? Type /aboutme and you can read
everything I hold, and correct anything I've got wrong.
but can't I just ask an AI about my Strava now?
You can, and it's genuinely useful. Strava added a Claude connector: plug in, ask a question, get an answer from your own data. If all you want is the occasional "were my easy runs easy enough?", that's a fine tool.
But that's a search box for your history, not a coach. It waits for you to ask, forgets you between chats, holds no plan, and only ever sees Strava.
OpenPacemaker is the other thing. It watches every session and reaches out first, holds a plan and rewrites it as your week goes, remembers you across months, reads your Garmin recovery, pushes structured workouts to your watch, and coaches across run, ride, tri, swim and hike.
Ask an AI and it tells you what happened, when you ask. A coach tells you what to do tomorrow, before you do, towards a goal.
a note on Telegram
The coach lives in Telegram because its Bot API is free, which is a big part of how OpenPacemaker stays free for you. It's the same kind of chat you already know: messages, voice notes, replies. A 30-second install on iOS, Android or desktop, and the coach is just one more conversation in your list.
How it stacks up
Other tools log your activities, build a plan, or answer a question when you ask. None of them coach you: proactively, with memory, towards a goal.
| OpenPacemaker | Strava | intervals.icu | TrainingPeaks | Runna | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chat with it in plain English | yes | ask-only | no | no | partial |
| Adapts the plan as your week goes | yes | no | manual | manual | limited |
| Remembers you across conversations | yes | no | no | no | no |
| Reaches out first, every day | morning · post-run · weekly | no | no | no | scheduled |
| Coaches across sports | run · ride · tri · swim · hike | tracks all | tracks all | tracks all | run only |
| Voice notes accepted | yes | no | no | no | no |
| Price | free for everyone | freemium | free | paid only | paid only |
Public features, June 2026. Strava, intervals.icu, TrainingPeaks and Runna are excellent in their categories. OpenPacemaker is for the athlete whose problem is "I want a coach who knows me", not "I want somewhere to log my runs".
You can keep screenshotting your Strava into a chatbot every Sunday. Or your coach can read your data, message you first, reshape your plan and remember you, every day, from inside a chat you already have open.
Sign upFree for everyone · no premium tier · no card needed