Dave I struggle to think why, and I could be accused of trying to do too much thinking 
, but you have perhaps answered my own question.
The togetherness, the comraderie (sp?), the kindred spirts, all that! I once posted about a very good local triathlete who struggled at Lanza this year. He struggled big time towards the end of the bike and instead of pulling out of the run and saving himself for another day, he continued. He told of how he looked around him, and in respect to all the folks who would still be going ten hours on he kept going. He said he would have crawled across the line if needed.
As it turned out it was a typical elite's 'preparing for failure' statement as he qualified for Kona 
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I also watched and was totally inspired by Chrissie giving out medals to the tail enders after her epic win last year.
For me, the respect right through the field goes beyond any other race, especially the shorter ones. The pirate ethos seems to epitomise that spirit, and I want to keep coming back to drink at their fountain. There will be no pinnacle, no end game, therefore I hope I won't become disappointed with myself. It's merely a new chapter for me and one in which I can amuse myself for hours, days, weeks and months.
I want to get faster, I'm sure no-one wants to be slower. But my improvements at sprint (if any) will not be worth documenting as far as I'm concerned.
An hour and a half off my IM time, however, is my target, and it will be a difficult enough one to give me something to occupy myself with for the near future.
I don't ever hear our club's tri sprint bunch complaining that IM is given more respect or coverage. Quite the opposite in fact as the IM bow to their speed, their athleticism, and dare I say it, their youth 
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VT'd, I'm very involved in my club, we are big, well established and our coach won national BTF coach of the year, maybe the year before last. We also have close links with the running club (I'm a member there also) and the swimming club. All 3 clubs have a very good top end performance. I struggle to keep in the womens top team for running yet I can average 6.36 mm over half mara distance.
There are some really fast strong people in all 3 clubs, however they are still generally pretty impressed with distance at whatever speed. It's weird when super fast guys in my club say that they couldn't do an Ironman or would need so many years to build up to it, which is where (Candy, Mon et al) started something that blew that out of the water.
