Chris McCormack had won every major triathlon on the planet except the one he wanted the most. On Saturday, October 13, on his sixth try, he finally got the monkey off his back when he put together the perfect race, held off Craig Alexander and won the Ford Ironman World Championship.

Sean Maroney and Chris McCormack sat down to create The List. They were 18-year-old soul mates who had fallen hard for the sport of triathlon. They dreamed of one day being the best in the world, just like their heroes Mark Allen and Dave Scott.

“We had read all of the magazines and seen all of the television coverage,” recalls McCormack. “There was the Escape from Alcatraz, St. Croix, Chicago… 37 races in total.”

Their goal was to one day win every single one of those races. At the top of The List was the Ironman, the most important one of all.

“Sean and I would watch the coverage of the Ironman over and over again and my dad would walk by and laugh at us,” remembers McCormack. “He’d say, ‘Boys, why do you keep watching that same show? Here’s what’s going to happen. Mark Allen will break away from Dave Scott and finally win.’ Then he’d walk away shaking his head.”

Young Sean and Chris didn’t care. They were intrigued with the classic colors of the Big Island of Hawaii, the contrast between the bluest blues of the ocean and the blackest blacks of the lava fields. Legendary commentators Phil Liggett and Al Trautwig, along with a great musical score, sucked them in again and again.

“It looked so inviting,” says McCormack. “I couldn’t wait to one day give it a go.”

By early in the new century, McCormack had won the ITU World Olympic Distance Championship, Ironman Australia, Quelle Roth and had crossed off every other event on the master list. Except one.

McCormack was gearing up for the 2002 Ford Ironman World Championship and Maroney had qualified as well. Besides eventually winning the Ironman, the two buddies also had made a secret pact. They wanted to lead the Ironman bike ride at the turnaround in Hawi.

In early June, Maroney was at a party in Honolulu and somehow, someway, fell to his death. McCormack was devastated. When he went to the Big Island in October to attempt to cross off the last event on the master list and to, hopefully, cement his Hall of Fame resumé, he was racing for both of them.

At a pre-race media event, McCormack told anyone who would listen that he was hoping to win the Ironman six times, just like his idols Dave Scott and Mark Allen. Some felt he was cocky and had a big mouth. Dave Scott? He felt McCormack may want to win number one before talking about number six.

On race day, McCormack found himself with the two German leaders, Thomas Hellriegel and Jürgen Zack, as they approached Hawi.

“I asked them if it was okay if I led at the turnaround,” says McCormack. When they nodded yes, he rounded the cone and looked skyward.

“We’re leading the Ironman,” he said to Maroney. “We’re leading the Ironman!”

But about nine miles into the marathon, McCormack was walking the Ironman. Then he was out of the Ironman. The following year (2003), he walked most of the marathon but still fininshed. And the year after that, in 2004, he dropped out again, this time in the Natural Energy Lab. Mark Allen happened to be out there in a car for NBC and picked up the totally distraught McCormack.

“He told me that I’d live to race another day,” recalls McCormack. “I was upset. I said, ‘At least when you had a bad day here you took second or third. I can’t even finish the bloody race.’”

Allen then told him that Ironman champion Peter Reid, who Allen worked with, had been worried about McCormack after seeing his amazing split times from a July Ironman-distance race in Germany.

“He told Peter not to worry about me,” says McCormack. “He told him that I was too skinny, that there was no way I could be that fit in April, July and October.”