Connect Garmin to Claude: the complete tutorial

What Claude can do with your Garmin

Connected to Garmin through Running Workout, Claude becomes a coach reasoning on your real data rather than on what you tell it. It reads your latest activities, your MAS, your max heart rate and your training load, then builds structured workouts it sends to Garmin Connect. The watch then guides you step by step.

The link uses an MCP connector, the open standard created by Anthropic, Claude's maker, and since adopted by ChatGPT and Gemini. Claude is therefore the assistant where the integration is the most direct: one button is enough to add Running Workout.

• — A workout in one sentence, sent to the watch on the date you want.
• — A complete 5K, 10K, half or marathon plan, built and adjusted every week.
• — The analysis of a run: pace per kilometre, cardiac drift, time per zone.
• — Notes, goals and constraints remembered from one conversation to the next.
• — Cycling (power, cadence) and pool swimming.

Prerequisites

A Garmin watch that accepts Garmin Connect workouts (most Forerunner, Fenix, Epix, Enduro, Instinct, Venu and Edge computers), a Garmin Connect account, and a Claude account. Custom connectors are available on Claude's Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans. Running Workout is free and asks for no password and no card: signing up is connecting your Garmin.

Step 1: create your Running Workout account

On runningworkout.fr, click "Get started". You sign in on Garmin's official site, then Garmin shows you the data-sharing screen.

Back on Running Workout, enter your first name and email. The sign-up assistant then offers to add Running Workout to Claude: that is step 2.

Step 2: add the connector in Claude

The simplest way: Running Workout's "Add to Claude" button. It opens claude.ai with the server address already filled in. Otherwise, by hand: in Claude, open "Customize", then "Connectors", click "Add custom connector", paste the address below and confirm with "Add". The path is the same on claude.ai, in the desktop app and on mobile.

https://www.runningworkout.fr/mcp

Then click "Connect". Claude sends you to runningworkout.fr: sign in if needed, then approve the authorization screen, which lists what Claude will be able to do (read your activities and profile, create and schedule workouts). On a Team or Enterprise account, the organization owner first adds the connector from "Organization settings", "Connectors" tab; each member then clicks "Connect" with their own Garmin account.

Step 3: enable the connector in the conversation

This is the most frequent miss. In a new conversation, open the "+" menu under the input box and enable Running Workout. Without this, Claude does not see the tools and answers from memory, without your data.

Then ask for your first workout, for example:

Look at my latest runs, then create a workout for tomorrow that fits and send it to my Garmin watch.

Claude reads your profile and activities, proposes a workout and sends it once you approve. Sync your watch with the Garmin Connect app: the workout is in the training calendar on the requested date.

With Claude Code, in the terminal

If you use Claude Code, one command registers the server. Then start the authentication with the "/mcp" command: your browser opens on runningworkout.fr for authorization.

claude mcp add --transport http running-workout https://www.runningworkout.fr/mcp

In the terminal, Claude Code uses exactly the same tools as Claude on the web. It is handy for chaining: analyze this morning's run, create tomorrow's workout, and push the whole week to the watch.

What goes wrong most often

Your data, concretely

The Garmin connection uses the official API and your explicit authorization; tokens are encrypted. Claude only reaches your data through the connector you added, in conversations where it is enabled. You can revoke Claude's access from Running Workout, or remove Running Workout from the connected apps in Garmin Connect, at any time.

Frequently asked questions