Day 6 - done (differently) · Athlete AI Community

3d • Wins

Day 6 - done (differently)

The automation setup around day six led me down a completely different path. I no longer have a Strava subscription because I find it too expensive, and future access to API or MCP will require a subscription. After researching alternatives, I swapped it out for two tools I already had:

Apple Health — my Apple Watch already logs every run automatically, and my Garmin (which I use for cycling) syncs into Health too. So instead of Strava, Apple Health is now where all my workout data lives — pace, heart rate, power, distance, all of it.

WHOOP — I was already wearing it, so I started using it properly for recovery: HRV, resting heart rate, sleep, and my daily recovery score. This tells me how my body is actually handling the training, not just what I did.

The one gap was getting the data out of Apple Health so my AI coaching setup could actually see it. For that I use an app called Health Auto Export. Currently priced at approximately usd 30 for lifetime access (compared to Strava usd 100 per year). I set it up once to automatically export my workout data on a schedule, and pointed it to save into my iCloud Drive so the files just quietly land in a folder on my phone that syncs straight to my Mac, no extra accounts or servers involved.

From there, pulling the data in is simple: at the start of a session, I grab the newest export file that's landed in that iCloud folder. That gives me a fresh, readable copy of all my recent workouts, which the AI coach then reads directly to see exactly what I trained, when, and how hard.

Before I fully switched over, I pulled my old Strava history one last time, 12 years of runs and rides, to calibrate my heart rate zones and spot my long-term patterns (turns out I've had a "big start, then crater" cycle for over a decade, good to finally see that in black and white).

Now my whole setup runs on Apple Health for training and WHOOP for recovery. Same insight, almost zero subscription.

0 comments

Day 6 - done (differently)