Which one is better for a marathon?

Shed, unless you also swim and bike. A marathon block rewards a plan that was built backwards from race day and holds that shape for sixteen weeks. A rolling two-week window optimises a different thing, and it is the thing that matters less on the day.

Are these actually the same product?

No, though the pitch rhymes. Both read your physiology and both reach out before you ask. athletedata is a multi-sport data layer with a coach on top and a rolling plan. Shed is a running race block with a coach inside it. The overlap is the readiness logic; the divergence is everything downstream of it.

Why is athletedata twice the price?

It carries far more integrations and runs an agent across every sport you train, which costs more to operate. Whether that is worth double depends entirely on how many of those sports you actually do.

Does Shed have an MCP server like their $9 tier?

Not today. If you want to query your training data from Claude or ChatGPT directly, that is something athletedata sells and Shed does not.

Compare

Shed vs athletedata

Both are proactive AI coaches that read your physiology. The difference is what they produce: Shed writes the whole race block to your date and holds its shape for sixteen weeks, for about half the price. athletedata keeps the next fortnight sensible across every sport you do, and connects to far more of them.

Head to head

Bold marks the decisive difference on that row, whichever side it falls.

	Shed	athletedata
Plan horizon	The whole race block, written to your date, with base, build, peak and taper held in shape.	A rolling window, roughly the next two weeks, rebalanced as you go.
Price	$19.99 a month, $149.99 a year.	$39 a month, $299 a year. A data-only tier is $9.
Where the training lives	A real app: the calendar, your splits, zone distribution, execution against what was prescribed.	A chat thread, plus a web dashboard.
Running depth	Running only, and built around it. Race-specific paces, periodization to a date.	One sport among six.
Sports	Running only, 5K to marathon.	Running, cycling, swimming, triathlon, strength, Hyrox.
Data sources	Apple Health, which carries most watches and most run apps.	About 23 direct connections including Garmin, WHOOP, Oura and TrainingPeaks.
Sessions on the watch	Apple Watch.	Garmin, COROS and Apple Watch.

A rolling window is not a race block

This is the difference that decides races. athletedata keeps the next couple of weeks correct and rebalances as your data changes. It is genuinely good at that, and for an athlete juggling three sports with no single target it may be the right shape.

A marathon block is not a series of good fortnights. It is a shape: base mileage that has to be laid down before the specific work lands, a long run that progresses on a schedule, a peak that has to arrive at the right distance from race day, and a taper that only works if the weeks before it were built to be tapered from. Decisions in week three are made because of what week fourteen needs.

Shed writes the whole block to your race date and holds that shape while it adapts inside it. When a week goes wrong it rewrites the week, not the destination. That is a harder problem than keeping the next fortnight sensible, and it is the one that determines what you run on the day.

What does not fit in a chat thread

athletedata made a real bet worth taking seriously: a message in iMessage gets read, a push notification gets swiped. Coaching that reaches you where you already are is coaching you actually receive.

The cost of that bet is everything that is not a sentence. Your splits, your zone distribution, the calendar for the next eleven weeks, what your last six long runs did to your heart rate, whether your easy pace has drifted, which sessions you executed as prescribed and which you did not. Shed shows you that, and the conversation happens next to it rather than instead of it.

Pick by what you are actually training for

One race, one date, running. Shed. The whole product is a race block that has to peak on a day.
Cost matters. Shed, by a wide margin. $149.99 a year against $299.
You want to see your training, not just be told about it. Shed. The calendar, the splits, the execution history are the product.
Triathlon, or running plus serious lifting. athletedata. Shed does not model your bike or your bench and will not pretend to.
Android phone. athletedata. Shed is iPhone only.
You want the coach in your messages. athletedata. Shed keeps the conversation in the app.

Frequently asked

Which one is better for a marathon?: Shed, unless you also swim and bike. A marathon block rewards a plan that was built backwards from race day and holds that shape for sixteen weeks. A rolling two-week window optimises a different thing, and it is the thing that matters less on the day.
Are these actually the same product?: No, though the pitch rhymes. Both read your physiology and both reach out before you ask. athletedata is a multi-sport data layer with a coach on top and a rolling plan. Shed is a running race block with a coach inside it. The overlap is the readiness logic; the divergence is everything downstream of it.
Why is athletedata twice the price?: It carries far more integrations and runs an agent across every sport you train, which costs more to operate. Whether that is worth double depends entirely on how many of those sports you actually do.
Does Shed have an MCP server like their $9 tier?: Not today. If you want to query your training data from Claude or ChatGPT directly, that is something athletedata sells and Shed does not.

The short version

Shed writes the block. Every session, every pace.

You give it a race and a date. It builds the weeks around the days you can actually run, reads every run off your Apple Watch the same day, and rebuilds the week when the week falls apart. $19.99 a month. The block is written and on your phone before you decide.

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