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While Stormers captain Siya Kolisi (27) performs amazing tackles on the rugby field, his wife Rachel pedals her heart out for a good cause.
On Saturday 2 March Rachel Kolisi (28) set off with 20 other riders in Kimberley on a gruelling cycle tour of 1 075km to Cape Town.
The Extreme Ride for Hunger event is part of a Meals on Wheels community outreach and awareness campaign, which ended on Friday 8 March at the Khayelitsha Centre in Cape Town.
Along the way the cyclists made stops in several Northern and Western Cape towns.
Rachel told YOU although she’s trained every day for a month to be ready for the trip, she now realises she should’ve started much earlier.
“To be honest, now that I’m here I feel like I didn’t prepare nearly enough. I only started training four weeks before the tour and only managed to get 20km training in on my bike before this [cycle tour].
“Otherwise I did the majority of my training at the Sport Science Institute in Newlands. I trained every day for 4 weeks on a watt bike,” she reveals.
Rachel started her quest to become “fitter and healthier” in July last year, according to an Instagram post.
But she admits up till a month before the tour, she hadn’t “been on a bike in years”. As a result she had to do special exercises to get cycling fit.
Rachel also shared a video of one of her training sessions on Instagram.
Homemaker Rachel and Siya have four children – Liyema (17), Liphelo (11), Nicholas (4) and baby Keziah (1).
Liyema and Liphelo are actually Siya’s siblings the couple adopted after their mother died.
Fortunately Siya’s Stormers had a game break last week so the captain was able take care of the kids while his wife was away.
“He’s now having a taste of my day-to-day life when he’s away,”Rachel quipped.
She tells us this awareness campaign is very close to her heart.
“The hunger stats in South Africa are so scary. My husband [previously] had many nights that he went to bed hungry or with sugar water as a meal.
“The work that Meals on Wheels is doing to tackle hunger in SA is massive. I’m getting a taste of the work they do on this tour,” Rachel says.
“I believe we as South Africans are very quick to complain and point fingers. If we all just did two or three things for someone in a worse off situation, we'd find ourselves in a much better place. So I’m really just trying to do my part. And trying to inspire others to do the same.”
Rachel lauds her husband’s “incredible” support with her cycling. He motivated her and is very helpful with her fundraising efforts, she says.
Siya also has no shortage of fans around the country, Rachel realised anew meeting young people in the various communities they’ve done food drops.
“Kimberly is a small town, and all the towns or townships seldom have access to [sports heroes] like Siya. I’ve video called Siya a number of times so far so people feel they've somewhat ‘met him’,” she reveals.
