In the long hours of Dec. 6 and 7, when the muscles in rock climber Greg Adams’ arms and legs burn and ache, all he will need to do is remember why he is climbing.

Adams, 28, is in the final training sessions for the Climb for Kidz (climbforkidz.ca), an attempt to climb the vertical equivalent of Mount Everest — 29,029 feet (8,848 metres) — in 24 hours.

The effort is raising money for the University Hospitals Kingston Foundation and the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Foundation.

“Climbing can be perceived, like a lot of things, as a selfish activity,” Adams said. “It’s nice to take something that can be that way and turn it into something with a community good, a community gain.”

For Adams, the climb is a very personal quest, too.

His daughter, Lilah, was diagnosed prenataly with a heart condition that prevent one of the chambers of her heart from forming properly.

Now two, Lilah has already had two open-heart surgeries where doctors essentially “re-plumbed” her heart to operate with only two chambers instead of four.

“She’s got half a heart and she’ll live with half a heart from here on out,” Adams said.

Adams tried an an Everest equivalent climb about 10 years ago.

It didn’t go well.

Twenty hours into the event, he was whisked away to the hospital to be treated for dehydration, a victim of the hot, humid August weather.

A decade later, and hopefully wiser, and with his daughter as motivation, Adams altered his timing, coaching and training.

With 15 years of climbing experience, technique was not an issue and physical training was relatively straightforward: lots of running and cycling to build cardiovascular endurance.

Adams attempt will be using a route up The Boiler Room’s 30-metre tall chimney — Canada’s highest indoor climb.

His schedule involves him climbing the route 300 times in the 24 hours.

He has budgeted three minutes per climb, with one minute to be lowered back down and have something to eat or drink if needed, before climbing back up.

Every 10 climbs, or 1,000 feet (300 metres), he is to take a seven-minute rest.

Every 10,000 feet (3,000 metres) he is to take a 20-minute rest for a massage.

Adams will need to take in about 12,000 calories and between 18 and 22 litres of liquids to fuel the climb.

Adams admitted climbing the same route 300 times will become monotonous, but he has trained to overcome the boredom and stay focused.

“That only happens in the first, sort of, third of it. After that it’s combating the mental game,” he said.

“They say anything 24 hours and over, is 50% physical and 50% mental.”

He was at The Boiler Room on Saturday, climbing through the night to get accustomed to the solitary experience.

While Adams is doing all of the climbing, he will not be alone. He is to have a group of volunteers who are to take shifts working his safety line, lap and time keepers to keep him on schedule and keep him supplied with food and liquids.

For information, or to support Adams’s cause, go to climbforkidz.ca.

elliot.ferguson@sunmedia.ca

Twitter.com/Elliotatthewhig