congrats!  i'd be proud of that bike and run for a rolling HIM!  and i love the finish line pics.

Congrats Carlo!!

Hey bud, congrats on the finish! 

Quick note about the run: don't beat yourself up.  It does sound like it was hot and that takes a lot out of you.  The easy answer is always train, train, and train some more, but I'd argue that the bigger reason for your struggling on the run probably wasn't your run training, the bigger reason was probably the bike.  There's really no way to mimic how tired your legs will be on the run part of a HIM.  The greatest half-marathoner in the world is still going to struggle during the run of a HIM if they weren't ready for the bike.  The trick of the triathlon is getting your body to feel comfortable getting off the bike and starting the run.  That's why the swim is generally treated as a warm-up for the bike, the bike is the key but you can't kill yourself because then you'll fall apart on the run.  So I'd wager that the hills maybe took a bit more out of you than you're thinking. 

That said, I see it the same way for everything longer than a Sprint.  To me the Sprint is more of an all out effort the whole time...like a long cross-fit workout or something.  It is a beast unto itself.  I guess the principle is the same, you have to get better on the bike to get better on the run, but the distance is so short that it seems different.  More time in the saddle isn't necessarily  the best technique for a PR in the Sprint distance, you're trying to maximize your output.

But for oly and HIM, you have to remember bike is the most important part of the triathlon.  Because A) it is the longest part by time (and distance, not that that really matters), and B) if you aren't comfortable enough with the bike distance that you get off the bike feeling alright, your run is going to suffer greatly.  This is why some people don't stress the brick workouts as much, particularly after they are past the novice level.  The power in bricks is teaching you what your legs feel like after spending so much time on the bike, and getting you to understand that if you push past it your legs will be back to normal after 5-10 minutes.  That's what the brick is meant for, it's not meant to teach you how to run the whole thing on tired legs.  Ideally your bike training has been comprehensive enough that your legs *aren't* that tired.  That's the goal anyways.  Easier said than done, of course.

You can run 40 miles a week with a 15 mile run every weekend, but if your legs are tired coming off the bike such that you end up walking most of the run, the run training didn't really do much good.  You (the hypothetical "you")  would probably have been better off biking an extra couple hours on some hills or something.  To discuss the same concept from a different part of the race: It's the same reason you don't go too hard on the swim...the great swimmers out there are not pushing themselves harder than you and I are...they're just much faster swimmers.  They have the same goal of going into the bike feeling warmed up and not over exhausted than you and I have, they just can accomplish that goal going much faster.  Work smarter, not harder, as they say.  And in triathlon working smarter means training...a lot.

Just my .02.  I'm no more of an expert than you...having taken the year off I think you probably have more experience than I do at this point.

Carlos I'm sorry I didn't mean to sidetrack your race results thread.

Great job Carlo!

Awesome pic at the finish line...

Congratulations Carlo! Fantastic time for a tough race, well done!