The Honolulu Marathon means different things to different people. For some it’s the culmination of months of training, for others it’s a boost in income from the influx of tourists. To some it’s a traffic obstacle to plan around, and to others it’s an excuse to visit Hawaii once a year.

I’ve never had any inclination to run a marathon, so my closest direct association to it was volunteering to hand out water as a member of the Pearl City High School Leo Club my senior year. About the only thing I remember is getting up at who knows what ungodly hour to join a carpool down to one of the water stations near Diamond Head.

So it’s not the first thing I think of when marathon time comes around. As the marathon gets closer each year and my friends post to social media about their training and eventually about the anticipation of race day, I am in awe of their undertaking. (As I once heard a comedian say some 30 years ago, “I can’t drive 26 miles without pulling over to pee.”)

But I also can’t help but think of my friend Milton Oka, who ran every Honolulu Marathon from 2007 to 2015. That ninth in a row came when he had just recovered from breaking his collarbone in an e-bike spill. A couple of months later, we and our longtime friend Carlton Shiroma met (along with our families) for our annual Christmas lunch, which as usual was delayed well into the new year due to our busy schedules. Milton had some bad news. He had been diagnosed with lymphoma.

Milton eventually took leave from his job as an engineer for the state. We were hopeful of a full recovery, but I tried to make it over to his house on my day off each week, just to spend time with him, or sometimes to take him to appointments or to Down to Earth for groceries. Even before his diagnosis, Milton had dedicated himself to healthy living. One year we had our Christmas gathering at my house and Milton brought pitchers of kale smoothies he had blended himself.

He also guided some members of his church — New Hope Oahu — as they sought to eat healthier and led a marathon training group for some of them.

But mostly when I went to visit Milton we’d watch Crowded House DVDs — back in high school, he lent me their cassettes and they became my favorite band, as well as probably his favorite secular act — and talk sports.

A love of sports was something Milton and I had shared throughout our friendship, which dated back to seventh grade. We’d played pickup basketball together throughout those 30-plus years. We both graduated from UH Manoa, and though we somehow never attended a game together, what is still my fondest Rainbow football memory came on Sept. 3, 1988, as I was hanging out with Milton.

He and I had played basketball that night with the Saturday night crowd at Pearl City District Park and followed with our usual trip to the nearby McDonald’s. We ate our food off the hoods of our cars and listened on the radio as Jason Elam booted what would prove to be the game-winning field goal against No. 9 Iowa for a 27-24 victory.

We reminisced about that night during my visits in 2016, but mostly we talked about baseball.

Back in 2003, I started a fantasy baseball league where teams carried over all their players every year. Milton and Carlton were in it (and in fact were dominating it). We’d talk about minor league players (eventually executing a trade where I sent him a prospect named Alex Bregman for relief help, which came to remind me of my Red Sox’s trade of a young Jeff Bagwell for journeyman bullpen arm Larry Andersen) and even looked ahead to Shohei Ohtani’s move to Major League Baseball, which was still a couple of years away.

That was also the year Milton’s Cleveland Indians made a run to the World Series, putting their 68-year championship drought up against the Chicago Cubs’ 108-year dry spell. The future Guardians fell short of course, and a few months later Milton lost his battle with cancer.

I think about Milton all the time, but the week leading up to the marathon I think about him a little bit more. I finally saw Crowded House live this year. It immediately became my favorite concert of dozens I’ve attended, but when it was over I wished I could’ve texted Milton about it (or better yet had him there for it with me and my wife). But I’m glad we made the most of that last year of his life.

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Reach Sjarif Goldstein at sgoldstein@staradvertiser.com.