Off-season template before marathon training

Hi Jordan, Austin, et al

It’s been a while since I posted here! Firstly, thanks again for the great content you continue to output - not wanting to sound like I’m exaggerating, but it is genuinely life changing stuff! Please keep it up :slight_smile:

Some context: I’ll be running my second marathon at the end of April 2025. I’ve got a program covering the running/conditioning that I’m happy with, which lasts 18 weeks so I’ll start at the end of December. But the strength aspects of this are lacking / non-existent. So I was hoping for some advice on templates to run before and during the marathon prep please.

Currently nearing the end of my second straight run of Hypertrophy I, pretty much following the default template aside from a few tweaks. I’ve also been slowly cutting and want to continue for at least another month or 2, but going to maintenance by the time marathon prep starts.

The marathon program involves 4-5 conditioning sessions per week and I’d aim to continue strength training 3x a week for most of it (likely dropping frequency / volume a little in the taper),

My thinking is that General S&C II would be a good fit for the ‘off-season’ period over the next few months, and then either running it again during marathon prep (depending on my experience) or move to Endurance (either way swapping out the conditioning slots for the sessions in my marathon program).

I’d really appreciate any advice :slight_smile:

Thanks!
Alistair

Yea, I think that the 3-day/wk General S/C II template would be suitable for this application. Bodybuilding II 3-day would also be viable if you wanted some variety during prep for the marathon.

Thanks for the kind words as well. We greatly appreciate it!