How it works
Simple setup.
Works every day.
How you get started, what the coach does across a normal week, and what it’s built on. For the full list of commands, see the docs.
Sign-up to first plan in about 5 minutes
Free while in beta, no card needed.
Changing things later: /settings is the one place for heart-rate zones, FTP, body weight, personal bests, coaching style, how often it messages you and your morning check-in time.
What it does, and when
You don’t have to remember to ask. This is a normal week.
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After a session
A read on how it wentAbout ten minutes after Strava gets your activity (so a two-part session lands as one), you get a card and a tap to rate how hard it felt, 1 to 5, or a voice note. Then a plain-English read: did it match the plan, how the pacing and heart rate looked, and what it means for tomorrow.
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Every morning
A check-in before you trainToday’s session and a one-tap question about your sleep. A poor night before a hard day? It offers to ease the session. With Garmin linked, it also reads your sleep, HRV and resting heart rate.
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Whenever you like
Talk to it like a coachType or send a voice note: move a session, mention a niggle, ask whether you’re ready to race. Bigger plan changes are shown to you first and wait for your OK; small swaps come with an Undo button.
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Sunday
A review and next week’s planHow the week actually went, and next week built around it. It asks if anything is coming up first, and can send the new week straight to your Garmin.
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Race week
Taper, race morning, debriefA race-week brief, a message on the morning, and afterwards it asks how it went and records the result.
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When it matters
Safety, even on quiet daysAn escalating niggle, fatigue running too deep, or a breach of a heart-rate cap you’ve set: it tells you, even if you’ve asked for fewer messages.
How often it messages is up to you: Daily, Balanced or Quiet. See it in action on the examples page.
The AI writes the words. Code does the rest.
Every message passes through the same five steps before it reaches you.
- 1 · Your training Everything you log Strava sessions, your messages and taps, Garmin sleep and HRV
- 2 · Worked out in code The numbers Training load, fatigue, zones, paces and race predictions, calculated from your data
- 3 · Memory and rules What it knows Your history and goals, and the training principles it follows
- 4 · The AI The coach Reads all of it, decides what matters, writes to you
- 5 · Safety floor Checked first Plan changes validated, claims checked, safety alerts always sent
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It remembers you
Injuries, races, preferences, what worked last time. Type
/aboutmeto read everything it holds, and correct anything it got wrong. -
Numbers worked out, not guessed
Training load, zones, paces and race predictions are calculated from your data. The AI explains them, and what it says about them is checked before it’s sent.
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Built on training science
Daniels paces, mostly-easy training, capped jumps in volume, recovery weeks and tapers. Every plan is checked against what you’ve actually done. The rules it follows
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Safety comes first
Heart-rate caps, injury and illness tracking, fatigue warnings, and an offer to ease off after a bad night. Safety messages still go out when you’ve asked for quiet.
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It reaches out first
A morning check-in, a debrief after each session, and a Sunday review with next week’s plan. You don’t have to ask.
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You stay in charge
Bigger changes to your plan wait for your OK. Small swaps come with an Undo button, or you can switch them off. You choose the coaching style and how often it messages.
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It sees all your training
Run, ride, swim, tri and hike, plus Garmin sleep, HRV and resting heart rate, so its advice accounts for everything, not one slice.
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Honest about uncertainty
When the data can’t support a verdict, like pacing on a hilly route, it says so instead of guessing. For the first two weeks it tells you it’s still learning you.
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Your data stays yours
Your GPS routes are never stored, the AI providers keep no data and don’t train on it, and
/delete confirmwipes everything. Privacy
A connector answers. A coach acts.
Strava now has a Claude connector, and it’s good for a quick look: plug it in, ask a question, get an answer from your own data. But it waits for you to ask, forgets you between chats, holds no plan, and only ever sees Strava.
OpenPacemaker is the other thing. It reaches out first, keeps a plan and rewrites it as the week actually goes, remembers you across months, reads your Garmin recovery, and sends structured workouts to your watch. The connector tells you what happened, when you ask. A coach tells you what to do tomorrow, before you ask, towards a goal.
No new app to learn.
The coach lives in Telegram because its Bot API is free, which keeps the running costs low. 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.
Getting the most out of it
Give your activities real titles. “Easy 10k, kept it conversational” tells it far more than “10.0 km”. It reads your activity title, description and private notes, so mention effort, niggles or why the session went the way it did.
Rate your effort. When it asks how hard a session felt (1 to 5), answer. It shapes the next plan more than anything else you tell it.
Mention niggles early. In chat, or with /wellness. It tracks them across sessions and eases off before they become injuries.
Ask the bigger questions. Try “how has my training changed this month?”, “what patterns do you see?” or “am I ready to race?”
Leaving? /delete confirm wipes everything, and revoking Strava access does the same.