TODAY’S Tamron Hall talks challenging herself, growing up poor & hating the gym

NBC news gal Tamron Hall continues to challenge herself.

The likeable co-anchor who also side anchor’s for MSNBC, decided to take part in  alternative series, “Running Wild with Bear Grylls,” and join the famed adventurer and survivalist on some action based empowering journey’s.

Why do this survivalist challenge for 48 hours? Via telephone Hall told us media,

“I’ve never done anything like this. I mean, I went to church camp. I think I was 8 years old. I called my dad, who is a Master Sergeant in the Army, and I pretended I have a stomachache so that he can rescue me. Maybe I was there – maybe 12 hours. And I vividly remember going to this payphone and calling home and my mom said, “What’s wrong?” I was like, “I’m not feeling good. My tummy hurts.” And my dad came to get me. It could have been an hour drive from our home, but I was ready to bolt. So I’ve never slept outside. I think I’m a pretty tough kid, you know. I grew up I was born in Luling, Texas — which is an incredibly small town, population I think like a thousand (if that) — and I grew up, you know, very, very poor and living outside, you know. Our entertainment was a water hose and spraying it at each other running around. It was a great childhood — a childhood that I would not trade for anything in the world, but I’ve never slept outside. I’ve never been in a tent. I was a Brownie, I think, for a week. I was not that kind of kid. So for me at this age it was incredible to have this experience, to have it with someone like Bear Grylls who, you know, is an expert at this. It wasn’t chichi.”

What is Hall’s workout routine??

“My workout is pretty much me riding my bike in the city. I have one of the portable fold bikes that actually was inspired by Al Roker. He rides his bike in and I saw him on his bike and I thought, “Great. This is a great workout for me.” I don’t like going to the gym. I actually hate going to the gym. I ran track my entire life from age four until college. And once I decided that I was not going to be, you know, Flo-Jo or I didn’t have the skills to be Flo-Jo I stopped running and just had no real interest in any hard work out which is terrible to say — I know. And at 44 I know I’m supposed to get in 30 minutes a day or whatever the latest research shows, but I’m not a big workout person. But I love riding my bike. I like anything that doesn’t feel like I’m working out. I love walking home from the studio. Just walking and that’s one of the things that I do enjoy about living in New York. It’s very different from living in Texas or Chicago where those are car towns. Here I’m able to walk, you know, from uptown to downtown if I have that much time. I just started doing yoga though and I’m really learning to appreciate it. So to prepare for my experience with Bear, this yoga instructor wrote out a few exercises that I would do every morning. So I get in at like 4:45 in the morning, I brought in a mat that I keep in my dressing room, and I lay out the mat and I lay out my little list of things that she told me to do — which pretty much were push-up, sit-up, and just upper body strengthening exercises. Nothing crazy or fancy, but enough to get my heart rate going and, you know, they tell you, anything is a habit after what, ten days or so. So I started doing it and now it’s a part of my routine even now when I go in to the studio. So I whip out my little yoga mat, lay it to my (teeny teeny) dressing room, and I do it. It takes about 15 minutes to complete the entire series which is, again, pretty much planks, sit-ups, side plank. And I’ve continued to do it even after the Running Wild experience.”

See Tamron Monday, September 1 at 8pm ET on NBC’s ‘Running Wild with Bear Grylls.’