mysql profiler "Sending data"

Is there an explanation of these statuses anywhere?

http://dev.mysql.com/tech-resources/articles/using-new-query-profiler.html

my specific question is in regards to this query:

select count(*)
from 135_5m.record_upd开发者_开发技巧ates u, 135_5m.records r
where  r.record_id = u.record_id  and 
  (u.date_updated > null or null is null)  and 
  u.date_updated <= '2011-01-03';

which returns a single number - 4053904. So why would the majority of the time be spent in "Sending data"? Is it just poorly named? Surely "Sending data" must be doing more than just sending data?

+--------------------------------+-----------+-------+
| Status                         | Duration  | Swaps |
+--------------------------------+-----------+-------+
| starting                       |  0.000224 |     0 |
| checking query cache for query |  0.000188 |     0 |
| checking permissions           |  0.000012 |     0 |
| checking permissions           |  0.000017 |     0 |
| Opening tables                 |  0.000036 |     0 |
| System lock                    |  0.000015 |     0 |
| Table lock                     |  0.000067 |     0 |
| init                           |  0.000105 |     0 |
| optimizing                     |  0.000052 |     0 |
| statistics                     |  0.000254 |     0 |
| preparing                      |  0.000061 |     0 |
| executing                      |  0.000017 |     0 |
| Sending data                   | 32.079549 |     0 |
| end                            |  0.000036 |     0 |
| query end                      |  0.000012 |     0 |
| freeing items                  |  0.000089 |     0 |
| storing result in query cache  |  0.000022 |     0 |
| logging slow query             |  0.000008 |     0 |
| logging slow query             |  0.000008 |     0 |
| cleaning up                    |  0.000011 |     0 |
+--------------------------------+-----------+-------+

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/general-thread-states.html

Executing means the thread has started execution, Sending data apparently covers both the processing of the rows and sending the count back to the client.

before sending data to client, mysql need to read data, the phase of read data may take the majrity time of "sending data"