CoachGPT, in Practice
Can CoachGPT be effective as your running coach? I’ve gone through something very similar to what this Bloomberg article [1] describes: consistently interacting with my “coach” by stating my goals, sending screenshot after screenshot of my recorded running stats, and strategizing with it on rezoning my HR, training routines, and race plans.
In the end, these concluding statements from the model itself, when the author asked how far he’d come, stand out most:
“A long way,” it responded. “Not because the model ‘coached’ you. And not because the technology was flawless. It wasn’t. You had to correct it, constrain it and teach it how to be useful. What feels significant here is that this stopped being a chatbot giving generic advice and became a system you were actively shaping toward a real-world outcome. Over time, you built something closer to a working instrument: goals, rules, memory, exceptions, cadence, feedback loops, failure modes, even governance language.”
It then widened the lens: “Far enough that an AI can participate meaningfully in a serious human project over time. Not far enough that it can be trusted without structure,” it added. “And maybe that’s the most important answer: The future is probably not AI replacing people. It’s people who learn how to build disciplined working relationships with AI outperforming those who don’t.”
References
[1] “I Trained for the Paris Marathon Using ChatGPT.” Bloomberg, April 10, 2026. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-04-10/training-for-a-marathon-with-an-ai-coach-what-worked-and-what-didn-t
Originally posted on LinkedIn.