Colm Homan is halfway through his toughest challenge yet as he continues to raise money for pediatric cancer research.

Homan has taken on the task of running two marathons in six days to raise as much money as possible to honour his son Eoghan, who died of cancer at the age of 16 in 2023.

After completing the Boston Marathon on Monday, Homan has travelled to the west coast of the United States to run in the Big Sur, which takes place along the Pacific Coast highway.

Having now completed 36 marathons, the decision to take on this stamina-sapping challenge comes as Homan feels he needs to up the ante to continue to bring in donations.

“When you’ve run as many marathons as I have at this stage, It’s important to do something different and above and beyond to get attention and hopefully get donations as well,” he said.

“It’s obviously a cause that’s very important to us. Hopefully what we’re doing is going to save another family from the struggles we went through in terms of Eoghan’s illness and if we can do that it will be worthwhile.”

Since Eoghan’s death, Homan has been able to raise $265,000, with nearly $65,000 coming in this Boston marathon campaign, and the money makes the pain he feels in his legs worth it.

“The legs are better day by day,” Homan said. “On Tuesday morning there was quite a bit of soreness in the quads in particular but we took a train to New York and just walking around helps a lot.

“I did a short run in Central Park on Wednesday and the legs felt a lot better after that. It’s important to keep moving otherwise the legs will cease up entirely. There is definitely tiredness in there but no injuries and I’m hopefully ready to go again on Saturday.

“It will get pretty sore and the tiredness will kick in a lot earlier than in a race you are going to fresh. That will be when I will be calling on the training and then it’s just the stubbornness of keeping one foot in front of the other.”

Homan holds fears for the funding of cancer research in the US since the US government cut billions of dollars in funding for life-saving research to develop cures and treatments for diseases after Donald Trump was re-elected.

“Given the changes to federal funding and the focus on where all government dollars are being spent, a lot of what might otherwise have been federally funded cancer research is at risk,” he said.

“So privately funded ventures are all the more important and something we are committed to doing. Pediatric cancer research gets very little funding out of the total federal purse, less than four per cent even before the cutbacks and the rare type of cancer Eoghan had receives practically no funding other than through private sources.

“There have been no changes to the treatment protocols for Ewing’s Sarcoma, which Eoghan had, in more than 40 years. Unfortunately, that’s not because they work well but because they have not had the funding to do trials that may develop new treatments. That makes us feel it’s important to put our time and effort into raising some funds.”

Homan’s efforts has already led to the Boston Children’s Hospital agreeing to name a specific fund after Eoghan and the money already raised is targeted to exactly where Homan feels it works best

“In recognition of our fundraising efforts to date, Boston Children’s Hospital agreed to name a specific fund the Eoghan Homan pediatric Cancer Research fund,” Homan said.

“All the money that we raise from doing the races will go directly into that fund and it’s a targeted fund for Ewing’s Sarcoma, which is the specific cancer that Eoghan suffered from, and neuroblastomas.

“We have been able to get some specific clinical trials kicked off, which have been exploring symptom management and the most recent one was dealing with one of the drugs Eoghan had to take in his second-line treatment.

“After the initial rounds of chemotherapy had been unsuccessful in eradicating his tumour, they move into secondary options to try to manage symptoms. Some of those drugs have very strong side-effects and what the most recent trials have been working on are ways to administer those drugs that will reduce the impact of those side effects and improve quality of life for patients as they are going through that part of the treatment.”

While there is a long road to travel before a cure can be found for the particular form of cancer that afflicted Eoghan, Homan is hopeful of small wins in a huge battle.

“Unfortunately with a rare cancer that has such a low incidence rate, it will be an extended period before we are able to see dramatic progress where we are significantly improving the rates of curing,” Homan said.

“But any kind of incremental progress would be meaningful and because it’s starting from such a low base, we’re optimistic that even by putting in research terms a comparitively small amount of money behind it that it will provide options for medical teams to come up with improvements.”

To donate to Homan’s fundraising effort visit the Boston Children’s Hospital fundraising site