It may be a surprise that a marathon on a small, tropical island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is among the ten largest marathon races in the world. But with its 25,000 annual runners the Honolulu Marathon really is up there with the big ones such as Boston, New York, Chicago and London.The first Honolulu Marathon appeared in 1973 with 151 finishers, and already in this inaugural race, the dream was to be on par with the famous Boston Marathon one day. Especially runners from Japan contribute to the field making it large enough to compete with Boston and making up more than 60 percent of the total.