Letshego Zulu was born strong. Her mother was an outstanding athlete, equally adept on the running track as on the tennis court, and Letshego followed swiftly in her footsteps, choosing a career in sports science and biokinetics as a way of celebrating the power and potential of the human body.
Today Letshego has made her name as a fearless, hardcore contestant on Fear Factor and Survivor, and her Pop Up Gym company brings the benefits of exercise and healthy living to public spaces and corporate offices.
But Letshego’s strength, in body, heart, and mind, was put to its ultimate test when her husband, the popular racing driver, Gugu Zulu, sadly died during an attempt to summit Mount Kilimanjaro in July 2016. Just shy of a year after her husband’s death, Letshego opened up to me about about memory, family, and the friendship of a faraway stranger who helped to lead her back to the light.
Transcript:
R: Hello, and a very warm welcome to another session of the Change Exchange. My guest today – Letshego Zulu. She’s an extreme fitness fanatic, which is the one thing that of course makes my eyes go like this, but also a biokineticist and the founder of Popup Gym, and we’ll hear a lot more about that. Very warm welcome, so glad to have you.
L: Thank you very much, Ruda.
R: Why biokinetics? Why did you study that?
L: I have had a keen interest in the body, specifically, since I was about seven, eight years old. You know, my mom was an athlete. She was a fitness fanatic, which I have obviously become as well. She was a runner, she played netball, she played basketball. She played tennis, squash, everything under the sun. And it amazed me, because at first she never really forced me into it – I was a spectator. And I watched her transform one moment from being a netball player to being on the basketball court, to all of these things and I thought wow, that’s amazing. So I’ve literally had a keen interest in the body, how the body works, how the body functions through sport and physical activity ever since that age. And that translated into my studies and eventually, when it was time to choose what I wanted to get into, it wasn’t specifically biokinetics at first, it was sports science.
R: And what is it that you want to give your individual clients? You also have other clients, but on an individual basis … What do you want to achieve with that person?
L: So I practiced as a biokineticist specifically for about three years, obviously seeing one-on-one clients and helping people achieve their goals. You know, you have all sorts of people that walk through your door, from people with knee injuries, hip injuries, to those that want to improve their performance, get fitter, faster, whatever it may be. And for me, the greatest achievement at the end of each day, or at the end of each rehab program with each client, was that I changed somebody’s life.
R: Ja, ja. How did you actually find that client? You’ve always created your own work?
L: Ja …
R: How did you do that?
L: It’s purely word of mouth. I believe in giving each client the best of my service and word of mouth is pretty much what kept me busy, because if I give you my best work, you’ll go and tell your friends and your friends will come to me. But also being athlete myself – being a runner, being a cyclist, and people knowing who I am … Obviously when you meet new people, you introduce yourself, and that’s how they know what it is that you do and that’s how I keep my clientele.
R: You participated in Fear Factor. About … what? 10, 15 years ago?
L: Gosh!
R: How did that happen?
L: That was 11 years ago … 2006. I’ve always just had this interest in doing extraordinary things. You know, things that not the normal human being would want to do.
R: Oh, absolutely!
L: I’ve always been about pushing the envelope and living life on the edge, and shows such as Fear Factor has always caught my attention, and Amazing Race, and Survivor and all of those shows. And you know, it’s only a handful of people that can push themselves to that level. And I believe I’m different and exciting and amazing and always wanting to try all of these interesting and scary things to see how far I can push myself.
R: What was the hardest thing to do?
L: Gosh, on a personal level I am somebody that is beyond scared and freaked out by creepy crawlies. Ja!
R: And?
L: And we had plenty of those challenges that absolutely defeated me – almost got eliminated a number of times because I can just never wrap my mind around handling snakes and all of those things.
R: Big spiders and things like that?
L: Exactly. But out of 20 contestants I was the fourth last on the show, so I did last quite a bit.
R: And Survivor? What was that like?
L: Wow, Survivor was intense. I think that’s the best word to describe Survivor. Very often people used to ask me: “Do you really go hungry?” The answer is yes. Yes. And I think if I remember correctly, the longest period of having no food was about four days.
R: How did you feed yourself? What did you find?
L: You drink water. There was plenty of coconut on the trees, but there’s just something about coconut on my taste buds that I couldn’t. I couldn’t eat it. I could drink the milk, so luckily for me I was in a team of people that I understood. I mean, and I made it clear from the start that guys, I cannot, I will gag, I will not be okay if I eat coconut, but if you give me the milk, I’m fine. So every coconut that was cracked open, I was called. “Come drink the milk!” But it was intense because you are firstly stripped of all the world’s luxuries. No toothpaste, no roll on … You know, even the basic necessities. You’re pretty much stripped of everything and you’re thrown on this island and you must just survive. And for me I learned so many lessons out of that. We place so much … We almost put these worldly things on a high pedestal, you know. At the end of the day …
R: Do you mean appearance and things like that?
L: Appearance, and just having these luxuries in our lives. It’s almost like they take away from life itself. Survivor taught me to listen, to engage, to connect with people. All we had was each other. We engaged in hours of conversations. I made amazing friends from that show. When you’re stripped of everything, you start thinking of life in a different way and I’m actually grateful for that experience. I may have not walked away with the prize money – I came second, which is commendable, but what I took away from that and the lessons that I took away from Survivor … They can never be replaced.
R: You could have been a competitive athlete, but you decided not to. Why?
L: You know, I was amazing at running. I was a very good runner and I think I guess I have always been multi … I don’t know? I’m drawn by different things. I met and dated somebody that was a cyclist. He introduced me to cycling probably about three years down the line, and I just started getting a keen interest in so many other things. I often say to people when I get to heaven one day, I want to tell an interesting story. I don’t want to say I ran the Comrades twenty times and … You know what I mean? I know that I was very good at running, but there is so much more to do in life, and I’m there to try it all out.
R: How did the publicity around Fear Factor, Survivor … How did that affect your career? Did it make a difference?
L: It certainly made a difference in that platforms like that kind of put you forward and people know who you are and know your space. Some people can get lost in that, and for me I feel it almost highlighted what it is that I do, and I still stay true to what it is that I do. People have always known me as somebody in the health and fitness industry, making change in people’s lives. So ja, I think the publicity has certainly helped to keep me top of mind when it comes to health and fitness, and I still progress … Even with the change from being a biokineticist that’s seeing people one-on-one, to the now Pop-up Gym, which is now growing into its own brand.
R: Tell me about that? How did that start and why?
L: So, as I mentioned, I was a biokineticist solely focusing on one patient every hour for a good two to three years. And I remember one day sitting, thinking I want to touch more lives. You know? The eight to 10 people that I see on a daily basis isn’t enough. So I met a friend – a fellow fitness fanatic who is very passionate about her own health and fitness journey. She’s got quite a story, I must say, to also having so many people that she wanted to touch. She wanted to touch their lives. You know, at first the idea was … I think it literally took two weeks where we said let’s just get a group of friends together in a park and see how that goes. And I remember with two weeks to go, we ended up with over 60 people that pitched on the morning and we thought hmmm … We might be on to something. So Pop-up Gym pretty much came from let’s help people get active.
R: And how do you make it work as a business? Does everyone pay a certain amount to participate?
L: Yes, definitely. There are operational costs to putting something together like that, so Pop-up Gym has two sides to the business. There’s the public side where we get a big group of people in unique spaces, and why unique, is because we want to help people realise that health and fitness is something that can happen anywhere, anytime.
R: Unique spaces like where?
L: Unique spaces like Montecasino Piazza, Nelson Mandela Square, like Jo’burg Zoo. Places where you typically wouldn’t find people training. So the message behind it all, behind us taking them to unique spaces, is to help them realise that exercise can happen anywhere, anytime. Hence our slogan is #TrainingAnywhere, #TrainingAnytime. Whether it’s in your living room, whether it’s in your garden, whether it’s at work … Any space can be transformed into a health and fitness space.
R: So you said there were two sides? So that’s the one side?
L: That’s the one side – the public side. And then there’s the corporate side where we bring health and fitness to your office. You know, very often you get people that say: “Oh no, I’m at work from 7am to 7pm, I don’t have time to train!” Well Pop-up Gym will come and pop at your offices and get you moving so that …
R: For forty minutes between one and two?
L: Exactly! Or at the end of the work day. So that’s the service that we provide.
R: And how do you experience … Do you find that there’s a need in the market? Do people really want this?
L: There’s definitely a need in the market. As I mentioned, there are people that have made the excuse that they can’t follow a healthy and active life, because work gets in the way.
R: They’re too busy.
L: They’re too busy. So the solution is we bring the service to you. We will bring that yoga class or that zumba class, or that boxing class to you. Just for 45 minutes step away from your desk, and you can always go back. So definitely.
R: Do you see a shift in people’s attitudes to fitness and health? Because South Africans are famously overweight and unhealthy.
L: I have seen a huge shift in health and fitness. People are now starting to take better care of themselves and I think it’s because these opportunistic diseases have now started to multiply and people started noticing …
R: Diabetes and high blood pressure?
L: Exactly. The basics, really. And the easiest way to correct those illnesses is just eating healthy and regular exercise. And I think people are starting to listen more to the information that is being given to them. I mean, the information has always been there, but people were very stubborn in the past, and I think once people started realising that obesity is not the way to go, you will shorten your life, people started moving.
R: Ja, because 20, 25 years ago your mother must have been really an outlier in her community being so physically active and doing all those things.
L: Exactly. It’s something that was unheard of and unseen. But ja …
R: Why did she get involved in sport? A black girl in the 1970s?
L: Ja … I can’t really say why, because I don’t think my grandmother … I don’t think she really got it from my gran. I mean, my gran has always been a walker – she walks everywhere. But you know, it’s a good question – I must actually ask my mom how she got into it. But I think with her, physical activity started in high school, and she took it right through to varsity and when she was in varsity, doing it, that’s when I was there watching and that’s when it rubbed off.
R: Ja, because so many of us do it at school and then stop. And then you wake up at 40-ish and you think things are not moving …
L: It’s too late by then!
R: Well, start something again.
L: Exactly. I was that girl in primary school and high school that wanted to try everything under the sun. Every term it was, “Mom, I want to try tennis now” and next term, “Mom, I want to try hockey now” and lucky for me I had a mom that could provide the equipment for me. She was always willing to spend money on education and sport – those two things. But if it was, “Mom, I need a new pair of jeans” she would say, “Save your pocket money”.
R: You do all the really extreme competitions. The Two Oceans, the Cape Epic, what are the others. How has that affected your approach to life in general? If at all.
L: You know, I think sport as a medium is just one of those things that’s just ground-breaking. It breaks barriers. It just gives you the sense of I can achieve anything. As I mentioned earlier, I’m about pushing boundaries. I may not be a professional athlete in any of them, but I sure as well will try something new if it’s presented to me.
R: But it’s also about discipline and focus and hanging in there …
L: Absolutely, and having a very strong mental state as well. Something like the Cape Epic is gruelling. It’s actually the toughest, multistage mountain bike race in the world and it was unheard of back in 2013 when I did it … I was one of the first black females to take part in the race, and at that time it was the tenth year of the race. They had not seen a black female taking part in the event. And I can confidently tell you that I had very few people that thought that I would cross that finish line. And for me that was fuel in the fire!
R: Are you aware of breaking stereotypes?
L: Absolutely. That’s what I’m here for. I want to break all stereotypes. As many as I can, because I believe that everyone is an individual. I don’t want to be a sheep.
R: You don’t want to fit into a box.
L: No. And very often I have people that ask how do you do it? And I just say be yourself. Change the world!
R: On a personal level, we had your late husband here, Gugu Zulu, when you were pregnant with your daughter, and he was just one of the most inspiring, most charming, most attractive – in all senses of the word – people that I had ever met. And then you lost him last year on Kilimanjaro.
L: Ja.
R: You had been together since you had been teenagers? What made it work? What was the dynamic? Was he the one who introduced you to cycling?
L: He’s the one that introduced me to cycling, so there was this runner and the cyclist that came together and created magic. I met Gugu when I was 16. We started dating when I was 17. And I was 16 going on 17 … I hadn’t turned 17 yet. And what made it work is mutual respect for each other as humans, and communication. We talked about everything under the sun. And for me that is one of the hardest things that I’ve had to deal with after having lost him, because I don’t have my sounding board anymore. Yes, I have my mom. She’s also my best friend. But you know when you commit yourself to someone else and you get married to someone else, you start your family … And … Ja. And I now listen to myself.
R: It’s been … What? Eight, nine months? How did you … Was there a conscious attempt to get through it, or did you just face one day at a time?
L: It literally is one day at a time. And I’m ever so grateful to one woman that has helped me through this journey – more specifically right at the beginning. It’s an American lady, I’ve never met her. She also lost her husband on Kilimanjaro. I lost Gugu in July; she lost her husband the previous September. When Gugu passed away the news went global – even as far as the U.S. where she heard about it. She immediately wrote to a Sunday Times journalist who wrote a letter to me, to the journalist. And apparently it was published in the newspaper and a friend of mine got hold of that newspaper clip. Her name is Chelsea Dinsmore – very similar age, had also been with her husband for about 13 years – Gugu and I have been together for about 15 and a half years – we’re very similar in many ways. And I think about a month after having lost Gugu, a dear friend of mine said to me there is somebody that I think would be the one person that knows exactly what you have been through.
R: That might actually understand.
L: That might actually understand, because the rest of the rest of us try to be there for you as much as we can, but we’ve got no idea what it is that you’ve been through in this journey that you’re on. Many other people have lost their husbands and their wives, but in the way that you lost yours there is actually somebody else out there. And she said to me if you’d like me to trace her, I’ll do that for you. And she did exactly that. Chelsea has been amazing. We are on WhatsApp every other day, and just sharing her story with me and every other day sending me a message to say: “What are you going through today? What’s on your mind? What are you thinking about?” Even when I was thinking about moving back to our home, because when Gugu passed away it took me quite a while to go back home. I remember sending her a message and saying: “I know at some point I have to move back home – how did you go through that?” Just having that sounding board, you know? It certainly helped get me up and going …
R: It is actually unique to have someone who has really walked the same path.
L: Ja. I remember the one time when I was going through a dark moment – and she warned me about the dark moments – you’ll feel okay for a good day or two without crying or without being emotional, being in a dark place, and then it hits you. And I was going through a dark period and I remember the one night, lying in bed – because I could hardly sleep – I think for the first three months I could hardly sleep. I would be managing about an hour or two every night. And I went onto social media – Instagram, to be specific – and I thought, “Hey, I wonder if Chelsea has a page on Instagram”. So I searched for her, and there it was. And I remember seeing – I can’t remember the specific picture – but just landing on her Instagram page and seeing lively pictures of her … I remember scrolling to the bottom to check the date and realising that these dates are after Scott’s passing – her husband was Scott. And I thought there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
R: It is possible.
L: There’s a rainbow after the storm. And that night I thought okay, there’s a life to be lived. He would want me to.
R: And your daughter? She brings a smile.
L: Absolutely. She does. She lost her father just after she turned one – she turned one and three weeks later her dad passed away. She’s just about to turn two in the next two to three months …
R: And looking at pictures of them, they just look so close. Even when she was a baby.
L: He was absolutely amazing – he was a hands-on father. Never turned a nose away from a diaper change, always willing to babysit. You know, before baby, Gugu and I used to go out and train together for the different endurance races, and once we had a little one – a new addition to our home – we made a decision that our lifestyles don’t change, she needs to get used to our lifestyles, but let’s just change the schedule around a bit, you know? And I remember specifically the beginning of 2016, he was training for his fourth Cape Epic which he then did – I think it was the end of March was when the race was. And I was training towards my first Half Iron Man, which was in June. And he literally crossed the finish line of the Epic and he hung up his bike and he said: “It’s your turn.” So that was me, going out training, and he was the father at home. If I had to head out the house at 04:30 in the morning to go for a swim at the gym and then a run afterwards he was there. On the weekends if I’m gone for an eight-hour ride on a Saturday morning he was there with her. So they developed their very own very close bond and she knows who her father is. We’ve got pictures in our home on our walls and, you know, she points at them. Every single day, we have to pick her up because they are too high for her, we have to pick her up and, you know, she’ll kiss her daddy, she’ll kiss her mommy, she’ll kiss her granny and kiss that person and kiss that person and she knows who her daddy is.
R: What does she mean in your life?
L: Oh my goodness … She means …
R: What’s her name?
L: Her name is Lelethu. Her name is Lelethu. It means “ours”. And her second name is Naledi, which means “star”. She’s our star.
R: Gugu said to me, “I’m waiting for my princess”.
L: And that’s what she is. That’s what she is. I had an amazing pregnancy with her, and have had an amazing 21 months with this amazing, adventurous child. She is her parents’ child because she’s just that adventurous. What she means to me is there is a life to be lived. Exactly what I said. There’s this little person who still has her whole life ahead of her and I’m not going to pause that. And the best that I can do is to give her as much and expose her to as many possibilities and experiences as possible.
R: Roots and wings, they say.
L: Exactly.
R: And your home? Did you move back to the same home?
L: I moved back to the same home in October. Gugu passed in July, and it was easier than I thought. I remember, I did visit the home a couple of times – obviously my clothes and my belongings were there – so I would go there to go and pick up clothes and I was pretty much living between my mom’s house and Gugu’s parents’ home, switching between the two leading up to October and when I made the decision, I told the family that it’s time for me to move back home, they absolutely supported me and they said to me, “Would you like us to move back with you to help you get started again?” And I said, “Not all of you!” So I nominated my mom to move back home with us.
R: You didn’t consider moving somewhere else?
L: No. That’s our home. It’s a home that we started together. We moved into that home just after we got married in 2014, and …
R: You want to be there?
L: Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s got so many memories, you know? I don’t know, maybe a couple of years down the line we might move to a different city, we might move to a bigger home, but that’s where we started our lives together, that’s the home that our daughter knows and was born into.
R: So what attracted you to that house, specifically, before it became your home?
L: It wasn’t specifically the house, per se. It was the area. Where we stay, my sister-in-law lives one kilometre up the road, my in-laws stay three kilometres to the left, my mom stays three kilometres to the right, so it’s in a prime position. It’s not necessarily the house itself.
R: And you’re a family person, woven into that network.
L: Ja. Ja. And after having lost Gugs, there’s nothing that I’m more grateful for than having family around.
R: Letshego, thank you so much, and all of the very, very best. We are … We still mourn with you. He was an amazing man.
L: Thank you very much.
R: But good luck, and all of the best.
L: And he will forever be with us. He will forever be with me. Until infinity.
R: Thank you for being with us, until the next time, goodbye.
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