Under the glittering glow of booming fireworks, the 44th Honolulu Marathon will get underway at 5 a.m. Dec. 11. Some 30,000 participants will lace up for the 26.2-mile course that starts on Ala Moana Boulevard, then winds along Chinatown and Downtown streets before heading to Waikiki, Kahala and, eventually, a turnaround point in Hawaii Kai.

Ranked as the fourth-largest marathon in the United States, the Honolulu Marathon brings to the start line some of the fastest professional athletes on the planet as well as recreational runners, walkers and others.

“You’re actually on the same course at the same time as some of the best in the world,” said Dr. Jim Barahal, the nonprofit Honolulu Marathon Association’s longtime president and CEO. “Because we have an out-and-back course, most people get to see the winners running. It’s cool.” Last year, Filex Kiprotich of Kenya turned in the second-fastest time in the event’s history, 2 hours, 11 minutes and 43 seconds.

Barahal estimates that since the marathon made its debut in 1973 with 171 runners, more than 700,000 people — “a lot of them are local people” — have crossed the finish line in Kapiolani Park. “To some extent, this is like our Madison Square Garden. This is our Rose Bowl … our Fenway Park,” he said of that last stretch of the course.

A Michigan native, Barahal ran the marathon in 1978 while on Oahu to interview for a medical residency, and moved here six months later. Since then, the urgent-care physician has competed in scores of races. However, he has yet to enter himself in another Honolulu Marathon as he’s too busy on race day.

Always held on the second Sunday in December, the foot race “cuts through families and generations. People see this as part of the community, our sports tradition. We’re very aware of that. We want to keep the tradition strong and add enough bells and whistles to it to keep it economically viable. … Honolulu’s one of the longest-running marathons. It’s an event, it’s a happening, it’s a coming together of people. On some level it’s a business. It requires nurturing. It requires constant re-invention to keep it thriving and going further.”

Question: What’s new for this year’s marathon weekend?

Answer: The Kalakaua Merrie Mile, which is being held the day before the marathon. It’s part of a process and planning … to keep the Honolulu Marathon competitive with other endurance events and destination events. … There are many options out there for people, so you have to try to keep it fresh. … The mile is an event to give people, other than people running the marathon, a “mini-marathon” experience. Rather than just watching and cheering, it gives them a chance to get out on the road, get moving, have people cheering them … make them feel more a part of the marathon experience.”

Also, this year we have the silver medalist from the Rio Olympics (Feyisa Lilesa). He’s from Ethiopia, but in political asylum right now in the United States. We felt honored to bring him. (Lilesa made headlines when he approached the Olympic finish line with his wrists crossed, flashing an “X” in a gesture of solidarity with a protest against the Ethiopian government’s treatment of the Oromo tribe, the largest ethnic group in the country.)

Q: You joined the Honolulu Marathon Association in 1984. How has the sport evolved over the years?

A:Marathons really changed in the mid-1980s. We went from the ’70s running boom, which was pure amateur sport, to recognition, in some events, of professional runners and bringing in sponsors. And there was an upping the ante on these events, an understanding that marathons could be significant economic booms to municipalities. I came in and began to understand those changes. Our team spearheaded bringing in sponsors, modernizing the event and reaching out to Japan — bringing in sponsors and participants from there — and making it more of a global event as opposed to a predominately local event. If you look back 30 years, you’ll see that the events that modernized thrived and grew, and those that didn’t … dwindled and died.

Q: Between the late 1980s and the early ’90s the Honolulu Marathon’s size doubled, hitting 30,000 entries due in large part to Japanese runners. What spurred the interest?

A: Marathoning is a very traditional sport in Japan. Historically, before the African domination of the marathon, Japanese marathoners were among the best in the world. Japan’s Toshihiko Seko won the Boston Marathon (1981 and 1987). He was No. 1 in the world. Running has always been big in Japan. Until a few years ago, there were a lot of races but not marathons, which were for elite runners only. You’d probably have to be able to run a sub 2:25 marathon. There was no place for a recreational runner — they couldn’t do a marathon. And so the Honolulu Marathon came along and created that opportunity for the ordinary Japanese runner to finish a marathon, with no time limit. That drove the growth of the Honolulu Marathon, and I think it coincided with the growth of tourism in Hawaii from Japan in general.

Q:For more than half of the Honolulu Marathon’s runners, the event is a destination race involving travel of more than 1,000 miles. What’s the economic impact?

A:We know the direct spending on the marathon is $130 million. That’s people spending money here — not an estimate based on people watching the event on TV and thinking about coming here.

Q: With Hawaii’s tourism focus pivoting to China, are you seeing more interest from that country?

A: Everybody’s feeling that that’s going to be the next big thing. … We’re laying the groundwork. There will be a couple hundred people from China in this year’s marathon.

Q: How many volunteers are needed to stage the event?

A: There are about 7,000 volunteers. Most of them are on the course on race day. Most of them are community groups at 19 aid stations. They function as spectators, too, because the race is so early in the morning — the aid stations become like cheering sections. There’s also volunteers for registration. And with volunteers we basically build a city in Kapiolani Park. That’s a major undertaking.

Q: Any other big numbers?

A: We cook 40,000 malasadas on-site in Kapiolani Park for the finishers. The malasada has become this perfect post-marathon food. It’s fresh and warm, sugary — a guilty pleasure.

Q: Will finishers continue to get a special shirt?

A: We’re one of the few races that does a finisher’s shirt. Most marathons have just race shirts, but a race shirt is not the same thing as a finisher shirt. I think it’s a really cool thing, but it’s a huge logistical operation to order the finisher shirts, get them to the park, sort them by size and actually distribute some 25,000 shirts. It takes a crew of a couple hundred people. … When we go through the process of evaluating everything we do and re-inventing ourselves, certainly that’s something we’ve looked at many times. And we always come back to the same place on that. It’s such a part of the tradition, we’re always going to have a finisher shirt.

Q: How many special-duty police officers are needed for marathon-related security?

A: About 400 officers.

Q: How do you handle race day stress?

A: People ask: “How do you stay calm?” And I say: “I never think about it.” Actually, there’s always one day when I think about it, usually sometime in October, and I get a little nervous. But the reality is you can’t think about it. We have a great team. … On race day, we’re focused on not only minute-to-minute, but second-to-second. There’s no dress rehearsal. Stuff happens. About five years ago, we had an electric pace car right in front of the start line. Then two minutes before the start — dead. Just dead. We had to push it off of the course and onto a median.

Q: The marathon has never put a time limit in place. Why not?

A: We have taken criticism for that over the years. Our last finisher takes about 15 hours. Some people say: “That’s ridiculous. You’re blocking the roads for a long time.” … The idea is that this is available for everybody, and people define their own accomplishments. I love that about what we do.