Gotta Luv It!

It’s been a long time since I played basketball in high school. I’ve been able to play a few pick up games over the years on and off, but never regularly. A week here or a short ‘tourney’ there. However, there wasn’t enough interest or organization to keep it going.

Not Any More.

Starting 5 months ago that all changed. Here in my current tiny town in rural Oregon I found a group of women who run, dribble and shoot hoops together once a week at our local high school gym. We meet in the evening for an hour and a half of… well… Old Lady Basketball (see the video here)!

We laugh and play and holler and run and later, once exhaustion sets in, we jog/walk up and down the court. Sometimes there’s only 6 of us and a little 3 on 3 action is in order. But other times we pull together a full court press of  30something and 40something hot MAMAs! We love it, the more the merrier.

When we knock off at the end, we wobble and hobble out to our mom-vans and back to our sleeping children. Back to our husbands, jobs, and PTO meetings.  And most times home to nurse our aching Backs!

I recently scored a whole passel of pain patches from Salonpas. (They are the only over the counter FDA approved pain patch.)  I dubbed them the Hot Mama Basketball Patches, and handed them out one night after the scrimmage. I wasn’t sure any of the women would want one, I hadn’t even tried one myself, yet.

One woman grabbed a package, whipped it open and slapped it on her front thigh. Heck yeah, she said it had been giving her grief all week. Another mom begged me to place one on the back of her neck. (She’d been doing the computer marathon neck bend all week.) The stretchy material was perfect to wrap around the small of her neck and stayed in place. I placed mine on my lower left back, where my Chiropractor had not been able to get a kink out.

We smelled like a wintergreen festival (mixed with sweat of course)… only a few minutes after applying we could each feel the patches working and soothing. There was a mild burn at first a bit like a muscle cream lightly stings. I went home and left mine on half the night, I could totally feel the effects that long!

I know basketball will continue, and basketball aches and pains may also continue, but as long as I can skip off to Rite Aide after the hot game for a thigh/neck/back Salonpas Pain Patch this Hot Mama can keep up with the rest of her life too.

Carissa received her Hot Mama Pain Patches (AKA Salonpas) to test with her basketball pals at no cost. (And the pals were very grateful!)