Colm Homan completed the New York City Marathon on Sunday just five weeks after running the Berlin edition as he continues to raise funds in honour of his late son.

Eoghan Homan, a talented runner who won national championships and the Front Street Mile in his age group, died of cancer at the age of 16 last year and the devastating loss has propelled his father to raise as much money as he can for Pals in Bermuda and the Boston Children’s Hospital.

Colm Homan is the leading fundraiser for that hospital in the New York race, so far raising $31,000, and was asked to speak at the Miles for Miracles team breakfast on the Saturday before the race to share his story as a way to help provide inspiration for some of the other runners.

“The family, we still take things day by day and week by week,” Homan, 52, said.

“It’s still caused us to take a step back and examine what’s important in our lives. For me, personally, running acts as my therapy. I’m able to get into a good head space when I’m out running.

“It was something Eoghan and I used to do together and talk a lot about. We participated in local races and I remember the transition from when I was running along and helping to pace him and maximise his performance to when he’d developed to a stage where he would leave me in his dust trail with some real talent.

“As it was something we had in common, it means there is so much for me to draw on in inspiration and remember those good times we shared, now knowing that we are trying to do some good in the local community with fundraising.”

That fundraising has been nothing short of exceptional with the Homans raising almost $200,000 in the 20 months since Eoghan passed, but much more is needed for the possibility of curing paediatric cancer to become feasible.

“I’ll have to do a little bit of a push with friends and family to see if we can get over that $200,000 mark but even those amounts of money are a drop in the ocean to what is needed to make meaningful change in being able to find some cures for this terrible disease,” Homan said.

“Paediatric cancer, unfortunately, always seems to get the lowest allocation of federal funding so a lot of it has to happen from private donations. We feel passionate about honouring our son’s memory. We know that we’ll never have him back but if what we’re doing can help save another family from the same fate then that would mean a lot.”

While Homan’s primary aim was raising funds, Bermudian Sean Trott was aiming to finish in the top 500 of the more than 50,000 people taking part.

Trott finished 468th overall after completing the 26.2-mile race, which starts in Staten Island and ends in Central Park, in 2hr 41min 48sec, and he was delighted with the personal best in his first international marathon.

“It was a PB and I was definitely happy with that,” Trott said.

“It was two minutes faster than my previous best, which was in 2020 in the Bermuda marathon, so obviously a completely different course and different conditions.

“The atmosphere was second to none and like nothing I’ve experienced before. Crowds were lining the course from the first mile to 26.2. People had signs, there was music and it was great. If I could do it again I would.”

Despite the encouragement on the course, the burn in the legs still arrived in the same place for Trott, around mile 20.

“It kicked in around the same area as normal, before about 20 miles I began to feel the fatigue kicks in but the crowd definitely did assist a lot,” Trott said.

“Being able to have runners around me continuously helped me to get swept along by it all.”

Trott’s preparations were interrupted through illness but he was pleased to have recovered in time for the test.

“I wanted to put in some good training but unfortunately I caught Covid in the summer and I felt the effects for a long time after,” he said.

“I was struggling to catch my breath after training sessions for a while and it only started to come back to normal in the last seven or eight weeks before the race.

“I built up to 16 miles and was ten miles short in my preparation so the energy of the day really helped me get through it.”

As well as Homan and Trott, Manuel Lopes completed the course in 3:53:44, Heidi Ringsted in 4:25:45 and Sean Ringsted in 4:32:32.