Runner-friendly recipes: homemade Hostess cupcakes, Thanksgiving treats

With ingredients like heavy cream and marshmallow fluff, there’s nothing intrinsically runner-friendly about homemade Hostess cupcakes. Still, I feel compelled to share the ones I made this week, since they’re celebrating something significant: Everyone in my Outdoor Emergency Care (ski-patrol medical) class passed the written OEC exam with flying colors on Tuesday!

The recipe comes from the cooking blog Bake at 350, which shows the cupcakes decorated with warm, fuzzy messages like “love,” “hope,” and “faith.” Mine bear some oft-repeated phrases from class, such as “This is gonna hurt” (which we’re instructed to tell patients before we do something that will hurt), and “Suck it up, cupcake,” which the instructors tell us when we’re being sissies.

The class isn’t done yet. We still have our practical exam to study for and pass. But I feel confident we’ll be celebrating that milestone with “suck it up, cupcakes” soon enough.

Speaking of cupcakes, Steve and I are skipping last year’s hilly, challenging Bethesda Chevy-Chase Turkey Chase 10K and are instead running the Alexandria Turkey Trot, which promises to be a flat, fast five-miler. Stay tuned for a review next week!

My homemade pumkin pie

After the race, we’ll be meeting with friends for a Thanksgiving feast that includes many of the same runner-friendly recipes I shared last year, including homemade cranberry sauce and roasted butternut squash, not to mention a homemade pumpkin pie.