Recovery-aware AI cycling coach for masters rider using Claude, Strava, and Garmin data

Ken Woodrow · 1H AGO

I built a recovery-aware cycling coach in Claude for myself, a 60-year-old masters rider. It reads my training and recovery data every morning and tells me whether to go hard, go easy, or rest. It is for masters athletes who recover more slowly than they used to and want a coach that plans around that. 1. I set up a Claude Project with a detailed coaching prompt. It covers my role for Claude, my current training plan, my zones and FTP, and the lessons from my own data about recovering at 60: 72 hours between hard efforts, three weeks to recover from a big multi-day block, and missed hard sessions get skipped, not made up. "You are a cycling coach, exercise physiologist, and sports nutritionist for a 60-year-old masters athlete. Prioritize research on athletes aged 45–65. Cite a study for every physiological claim, or don't make it. Plan around slower masters recovery. Refer anything medical to my doctor. Every review ends with interview questions." 2. I connected Strava through MCP so Claude reads my rides, runs, and lifts directly. 3. I connected Garmin's Personal API through an MCP server so Claude reads overnight HRV, resting heart rate, sleep, and Body Battery. 4. A scheduled task on my Mac runs at 6:45 every morning. It pulls Garmin, Strava, and MyFitnessPal data and rewrites my "Training Command Center" dashboard with a readiness call (go hard, easy, or rest) and coaching notes. My phone gets a link. 5. I check in by chat daily and after big sessions. Claude replies with a verdict, findings with numbers, the exact next session (watts, pace, or sets), and two to four questions about what the data can't show, like motivation, sleep, and appetite. 6. My answers outrank the watch. Readiness is ranked by motivation, then sleep, then appetite, with Garmin data breaking ties, because my HRV did not turn out to predict how well I ride. 7. Noteworthy sessions go into a running "Living Doc" in the Project, so the coach keeps what each season taught. The result is a daily readiness call and a specific next session, built around how I actually recover at 60.