\*\*Cross post from a post I made on r-IronmanTriathalon yesterday

Disclaimers:

1. **This does not replace a human coach.** I think a human coach is worth every dollar, but for me it was simply cost prohibitive.
2. If you want to set this up, **you give a lot of personal health/fitness information to AI.** You never know what a company will do with your data.
3. I think this is pretty apparent when reading through it, but obviously **I'm not affiliated with any company**. I set it up in the way I did because it was convenient and I have a bit of a bias towards Claude for accuracy + Strava integration, but in all honesty, I'm not a huge fan of training peaks. After reading everything, if you find another app that's better, would love to hear it.

Also, **this is completely free** aside from whatever AI subscription you choose to use. I personally use Claude, but any capable model should work. If you prefer, you can even run an open-source model locally with Ollama, making the entire setup 100% free.

I don't have any way to make money from this. No referrals, no platform affiliations, etc. It's simply a passion project that I built because I wanted a better way to plan my own training. I've found it incredibly useful, and personally I prefer the training plans it generates over any paid training app I've tried.

I'm just hoping others can get the same value out of it that I have.

\---

**TL;DR version**: New to triathlon — was morbidly obese a year ago, started swimming to lose weight, got talked into a half marathon by a coworker, and that led to signing up for IRONMAN 70.3 Madison. I leaned on Runna + TrainerRoad + USMS masters swim, but since none of them talk to each other, I ended up overtraining and dealing with a \~2-month hamstring injury (turned out to be a bike fit issue, not the intensity itself). TrainerRoad and TriDot couldn't handle my actual schedule (masters swim conflicts, group rides, injury-adjusted intensity), and a real human coach — genuinely my first choice — was cost-prohibitive. So I built a "skill" for Claude Code (should work with other agentic AI tools too) that acts as a full endurance coach: connects to TrainingPeaks, plans around my real life, sticks to evidence-based methods, adapts for injury rehab, and automatically sets daily calorie/macro targets. I do weekly check-ins just by chatting with it — it pulls real TrainingPeaks/Strava data and will push back if I ask for something dumb. Not a replacement for a real coach, but a genuinely solid option if a coach isn't in the budget. Zip with setup instructions below (an agentic AI can basically install the whole thing for you), screenshots below, feedback very welcome.

Setup video: [https://youtu.be/-4oBLaQzjlo](https://youtu.be/-4oBLaQzjlo) \- Video only, no audio. I'm not a YouTuber, so this was the best I could do. You should be able to do more or less the same and get this set up and working for you.  
GitHub: [https://github.com/freezin-tm/adaptive-endurance-coach](https://github.com/freezin-tm/adaptive-endurance-coach)  
Zip: [adaptive-endurance-coach.zip](https://drive.google.com/file/d/17l1LOV-5qaKmf-kqCfSQfedEJW8BRgaN/view?usp=sharing).  
Original code for MCP: [https://github.com/JamsusMaximus/trainingpeaks-mcp](https://github.com/JamsusMaximus/trainingpeaks-mcp), I didn't build it, just built the coaching skill on top of it.  
Setup: Just ask your AI agent to read the AGENT.md file inside of the zip. It should be able to set everything up by itself.

\---

**The long version**

**Some background on me:** I'm entirely new to the world of triathlon and endurance sports. This time last year I was morbidly obese and had just started swimming to lose weight. Earlier this year, a coworker talked me into signing up for a half marathon, which was way more manageable than it sounds thanks to the aerobic base I'd already built swimming. Since I was already doing both running and swimming, I figured — why not go all in — and signed up for a half tri: IRONMAN 70.3 Madison. Can't wait.

**Where I started, and where it went wrong.** Being new to structured training, I leaned heavily on apps, Runna for running, TrainerRoad for cycling, USMS masters swim for the swimming. The problem: none of these talk to each other. No app had any insight into what the others had me doing, and it quietly stacked into overtraining. That resulted in a hamstring injury, irritation or a strain, never got a clean diagnosis, that limited my training for the better part of two months. It was a rough one to take, too, because it hit right as I was starting to genuinely love training for training's sake, not just training toward the next event.

(Side note on the injury: it ultimately turned out to be a bike fit issue. The reason it dragged on so long is that I kept riding at lower intensity thinking that would protect it, but the fit itself kept re-irritating it regardless of effort. Fixed the fit, and I'm back to about 90% now.)

**Looking for something better.** While rehabbing, I looked into apps with more holistic multisport planning, tried both TrainerRoad and TriDot, but couldn't get either to really work for me. Masters swim would routinely conflict with how they scheduled things, I do group rides once or twice a week that the apps couldn't account for, and adjusting intensity around a rehabbing injury was a constant fight.

The next thing I looked at was hiring an actual human coach. Honestly? I think that's still one of the best options out there, they adjust dynamically, plan around injuries, bring years of sport-specific knowledge, and give you real accountability that no app or computer can replicate. That would've been my first choice, hands down, but it was simply cost-prohibitive for me.

**How I landed on AI.** A coworker and I had previously used AI (Gemini) to build swim workout sets. He was a near-nationals-level swimmer, and he was consistently impressed by the quality of what it produced. If it was good enough for someone at that level, it was good enough for me — and that got me thinking about whether AI could handle full triathlon training, not just swim sets. Turns out, for my situation, it's been the best fit I've found.

**How it works.** When you first set it up, it walks you through a full intake — training history, stats like FTP, injury history, age, weight, goals, your A/B/C races, even planned vacations. (Quick disclaimer: you're feeding a lot of personal data to an AI here. You never really know what a company might do with that data down the line — I think that's genuinely one of the biggest drawbacks, and worth going in with eyes open.) You can also feed it sweat-rate metrics and bloodwork if you want a more complete picture. Based on all of that, it connects to TrainingPeaks and publishes your weekly workouts directly. It's constrained to only use scientifically significant training methods, and it adapts toward specific goals — if you tell it VO2max improvement matters to you, it'll start working things like 4x4 intervals into your plan as you build toward races. It also builds in rehab work if you're coming off an injury — for me that's meant posterior-chain-focused strength work, with an extra set programmed for the injured leg specifically.

**Nutrition is where it really surprised me.** On top of training, it plans nutrition too — daily macro targets that auto-adjust based on what's scheduled that day and the next. I'd previously used Fuelin for something similar, and the two were usually within 5–10g of each other — the AI tended to land \~5g higher on protein, about the same on fat, and \~10g higher on carbs. I gave both the same target of about -0.5 lb/week, and both landed me in a similar mild deficit.

**The scheduling flexibility is the cherry on top.** I told it about masters swim on certain days and it just plans around it. Same with my two weekly group rides, it has those on the calendar with trainer alternatives built in, so I can pick whichever one fits depending on if I can actually make the group ride that day.

**Weekly check-ins** are just a conversation. I use Claude Code (the CLI tool). It automatically pulls workout data from TrainingPeaks and Strava (Claude integrates with Strava directly; not sure about other platforms), reviews the past week, and makes recommendations off real metrics, not vibes. I've got it set up to give me the good and the bad honestly: it'll flag if it thinks I'm overtraining, or if I missed a key session. And if I try to push it toward something likely to backfire, like adding a workout on a rest day, it pushes back.

**You do need more self-motivation with this than with a human coach**. But for me it's been transformative. It's the only solution that's given me the flexibility I actually need, effortlessly folding in group workouts and adjusting around them. A human coach could obviously do this too, but I never found an app that could. The two things it gives you beyond most human coaches: daily macro planning, and the fact that you can talk to it any time, any day, not just on a weekly or monthly cadence.

**Is this a replacement for a human coach?** Absolutely not. But if hiring one is out of reach financially, I think this is genuinely the next best option. Sharing the skill here in case it helps someone else, and I'd love feedback on how to make it better.

**Setup:** You can download the zip \[[adaptive-endurance-coach.zip](https://drive.google.com/file/d/17l1LOV-5qaKmf-kqCfSQfedEJW8BRgaN/view?usp=sharing)\] or from GitHub \[[https://github.com/freezin-tm/adaptive-endurance-coach](https://github.com/freezin-tm/adaptive-endurance-coach)\]. I've included an AGENT.md file in the zip, just point Claude Code (or a similar agentic tool) at it and ask it to read the file; it should be able to set the whole thing up on its own. For most of these AI tools, the $20/month subscription tier should be more than enough for this use case. For TrainingPeaks: the free tier only lets you schedule today and tomorrow, if you want the AI scheduling 7+ days out, you'll need a paid membership. Not required, but nice to have. I have zero attachment to TrainingPeaks specifically, it was just the platform I could actually get an MCP connection working with. For anyone more technical: you'll need an MCP connection to whatever platform you use, and TrainingPeaks was the only one I found an open-source MCP server for. It's bundled in the zip, but full credit for that goes to this person: [https://github.com/JamsusMaximus/trainingpeaks-mcp](https://github.com/JamsusMaximus/trainingpeaks-mcp), I didn't build it, just built the coaching skill on top of it.

(Here is a YT video with the steps to set it up. I'm on Mac, but I think windows should likely be similar. [https://youtu.be/-4oBLaQzjlo](https://youtu.be/-4oBLaQzjlo). There is no audio, again, not a youtuber, but you should just be able to follow along with whatever I'm doing and get it set up)

**One more privacy note:** the coach may ask for more information than a typical beginner-level human coach would, bloodwork, for example, because I built it to aim for top-level-coach quality. You're never obligated to give it everything. You can decline, or give it fake-but-adjacent info if you're not comfortable (e.g., tell it you're 31 instead of 32). Small stuff like that doesn't meaningfully change the coaching, but it's your call how much to share. Again, you never know what a company will do with your data.

If anyone tries this out, I'd genuinely love to hear how it works for you, and any feedback on how to improve it.

Build Your Own AI Triathlon Coach (Claude Code + TrainingPeaks + Strava) — Free & Open Source