I also watched it a few nights ago. I am amazed (again) by the female winner. She is such an athlete, and I totally dig that she wears a huge grin about 3/4 of the time she's racing!

I also really liked to see the comraderie btwn the female elites... the way they were joking about the winner and how 'she would still win, but just by not as much'. However I also sorta wanted to shake them and tell them to focus on their own race and stop thinking about someone who they thought was going to win!!!

I noticed the men didn't talk quite so much, though a few words were exchanged when one of them passed the other.

And the overall difference in the way the genders handled the racing, where the women might cheer on the other women as they got passed, and the men would say nothing. Interesting.

Oh, and I liked the intro section which showed all the people collapsing and stuff at the beginning. I wondered, so many people watch this event on tv now, I wonder if there are alot of people just going out and doing an Ironman first thing without really knowing or being aware how hard it is? In past years it's struck me that they only really show the elites pushing themselves to the limit, but don't really show the age groupers collapsing and getting medical attention.. I mean I know I respect that IM distance, but I can imagine that there are people out there that go, 'man that looks hardcore, I'm going to do an Ironman!' and just go sign up for it without realizing how very difficult it is....