Asking for help

Even though I train other people, I don't like to train myself. I don't give myself "time" and if push comes to shove with all of my work and family commitments I tend to let all my training go. But when I signed up for the Roma-Ostia half marathon last month (which will be in february) and convinced six of my runner girlfriends to come too, we all turned it into the "get over the holiday without gaining weight and becoming super fit" Challenge. So I decided to hire a coach. And it just so happens that I live with one of THE best running coaches around - lucky me! I've had Piero train me in other occasions, but we haven't done it for a few years now so I thought it was time! The first thing he had me do was a VO2Max test. Yikes! It came out...well, it came out just the way it was supposed to since this is me now: my anaerobic theshold is (only) 5'30"/km and my MAS is 5'10"/km - Um, really really slow but I guess I'll be happy to see those numbers improve in the following months.
While I was warming up to do the test on the track I noticed that an Adidas truck had pulled up and was setting up a tent. I don't know if they do this in the States, but in Italy all the shoe companies (because they copy one another and no one has an original idea...) come out to the running tracks periodically and let you test the shoes out by doing a workout with them. I was their first customer of the day. I decided to try these ones...Adistar something. Anyway, I didn't like them. They felt duckish, too big in the forefoot. Plus I could hear one of my feet slapping (remember the gimp leg) and that wasn't good. On the positive side they were lightweight and I still felt good control.