HIM before the HIM

if I was you, I wouldn't do it. Why? because racing always drops me into recovery. Being a month out is really to cramped for my tastes for another HIM. BUT people do this and some do it very well.

MO is unless you are just burning to do this secondary HIM, I would skip the idea. Practice what you want to get down in your training sessions, and focus on the target HIM.

depends on your goals.

There is a reason why you won't find a single training plan that has you do a HIM a month before your target HIM.

As far as practicing nutrition, I feel it is important to simulate the intensity you will be racing at.  How much our bodies are able to digest is largely dependant on effort.  So I don't feel that doing a "practice" HIM below your target race effort is a good measure of what your nutrition plan should be.  Especially since you will be spending more time on the course if you're going at a lower effort.

The workout I like to use to dial in my nutrition is a 60 mile bike and 4-5 mile run.  First 10 miles of the bike is semi easy...just to warm up and sort of simulate the swim.  Then it's 50 miles at HIM effort...then 4-5 miles running at HIM effort.  By 4-5 miles into the run I usually know if my nutrition is on or off...so I really don't need the feel to run any longer than that.

I'd do it. I looked around for one that I could do near me before my first HIM. Ended up settling for an Oly three weeks before. I get what everyone else is saying, but I want to know what a run is going to feel like after 3-4 hours of working out already. If you don't I'd say some long brick days are in front of you. Don't push yourself, don't taper, definitely don't injure yourself, but I'm pretty sure you've been doing this longer than me, so feel free to ignore anything I say.

I just remember that after my Oly (my longest race to date) I felt back to normal 2 days later. Assume the HIM is double, so let's call it four days. Thats 26 more days to train.

I second this, and I wish I had done this for my last HIM.  I barely did any real bricks during my training and 4-5 miles is where I fell apart on the run.  The reason people do HIM's before a full is because you can race it at the same intensity as you would a full and get a good idea of your nutrition.  

Race recovery is not a linear equation.  If you took it down another notch you could say that you feel normal 3 hours after a sprint.  So you should be recovered 6 hours after any olympic, 12 hours after a HIM and fully recovered 24 hours after an ironman.  It's more of an exponential recovery.  In a sprint you're really not damaging(not in a bad way, you know what i mean) your body.  The longer the race, the more time your asking your already beaten body to keep moving and keep pushing. In a full, you're basically asking your already beaten body to run a marathon.  

Point being, it takes more than 4 days to fully recover from a HIM.

X2, this is spot on intel, IMO

Even if that's true, you're telling me 4 weeks isn't enough to recover? The *worst* estimates I've seen say 5 days per hour of race (I think that's crap, especially when elite racers are doing 8+ races a season and kicking every time), a month is still enough recovery for 6 hours of racing.

Now, I'm not in great shape, but I did a sprint 2 weeks after my HIM and it was the worst race of my life.  I thought I was fine going in, but clearly I was not.

The issue is, if you're supposed to recover for two weeks and then begin taper 1-2 weeks prior to the next HIM, how is that optimal for performance in the 2nd race?

If I were looking to practice nutrition, I'd do a long brick instead.

Odds are, neither you nor the OP are 'elite'.  Also, while they are kicking ___ every time, they are not hitting peak performance every time.  A month is enough recovery time, but you lose time before the race, after the race and then while you are back to training but not back to 100% you lose some potential training effect, too.  The benefits you get from doing it, aren't worth the costs in most cases.

Generally, it's not a great idea for all the reasons already mentioned.  If you really go easy and just use it as a long training session, maybe it's OK.  But then why pay all the money and go through the time & travel hassle to do that when you could just go out and train?  If you don't care about that stuff, then fine.  But, again, for most it's just not the best use of limited training time and resources.  For many, it's a really bad idea.  For a very few, it might be a reasonable thing to do.  Those few probably wouldn't ask the question on a forum like this.

I'm doing a back to back one month apart. HITS first (HIM) then Wildflower.

Is it the best plan? Of course not. 

Is it a particularly bad plan? I doubt it. I might not get a rock solid surefire PR on either (Wildflower for sure will be a slow one being at tough course) but I'm perfectly fine with racing all-out and getting results just a hair (like a few minutes at most) slower than what I'd otherwise do if I skipped race #1.

The fun of racing both races was what I liked. I used to strategically target only an "A" race and drop all the others, but honestly, I can train as seriously as an amateur and get almost the same results while having fun even if I do the back to back. 

I'd actually worry a lot more about it if it were a marathon as marathons are notorious for putting you in super high injury risk in the weeks following. For HIM, if you're well trained, shouldn"t be a big issue