Who decides tomorrow's workout: a person or a model? In the last sixteen months, the two biggest companies in endurance sport answered that question differently.
Strava bet on the model
Strava went first. It bought Runna in April 2025 and has been folding it into the main app. The concept is simple: enter your race date, get a plan.
It is exactly the right solution for the people it serves.
Most people signing up for a 10K or a first half marathon are unlikely to hire a coach in the first place:
- They aren't yet sure what a real coach could do for them.
- A real coach costs multiples of what an app costs (€15 a month versus €150 to €200 a month).
- Most of them will only do one or two events over several years, so continuous follow-up is not a priority.
That is a huge part of the endurance community, so Strava's bet makes a lot of sense.
Garmin bet on the person
Garmin went the opposite way. On 22 July it bought TrainingPeaks and TrainHeroic. Garmin already had more athlete data than almost anyone on earth, and plan generation was already shipping on its devices. It could have pushed further down Strava's road. Instead it bet on coaching.
That only looks strange until you follow an athlete past their first couple of races. Once someone is racing regularly, building their week around training and fitting all of it around work and family, data stops being enough.
What a model sees, and what a coach knows
A model sees that your HRV is low and your resting heart rate is up. A coach knows your daughter was sick last week, that you always panic in the third block of your race build, and that the session you want to skip is the one that matters.
A model reacts to data. A coach carries context, and context changes the decision.
So read the two bets side by side and they stop looking like a disagreement. They are answers for two different athletes. One wants structure and simplicity. The other wants someone who knows them better than they know themselves and can read between the lines.
Why we built both
We think both bets are right. That is why we built for both, on the same engine.
The Wyder app is an AI coach for beginner and recreational athletes who want something affordable and simple.
Wyder for Coaches is that same AI stepping back into a co-pilot role: drafts, data analysis, risk flags. It takes coaching out of the spreadsheets and puts the coach closer to the athlete, which is where their strength actually shows.
We also believe endurance sport should not be lonely, so both sides connect to our social layer, where athletes can publish upcoming workouts to a network of over 1,700 athletes.
The bet neither of them made
One company bet on the model. The other bet on the person. The bet neither of them made is that these two worlds belong in the same place.
We did that. Check it out here.