[pct-l] Foot Expansion

[Diane Soini of Santa Barbara Hikes]

Sorry for so many emails on this topic. I've been interested in feet  
and shoes for a long time, having suffered foot problems all my life  
from there not being any shoes to fit me right. This actually led me  
to teach myself how to make my own shoes.

One thing I learned from shoemakers is that you can feel with your  
foot a difference as small as less than 1/8 inch. Therefore, the  
tolerances when making a shoe need to be very close--measurements of  
the leather need to be in millimeters. This explains why so many  
different shoes will fit so differently. It takes only a millimeter  
here and there for a shoe to feel completely different to your foot.

Secondly, there is very little difference between sizes. Half sizes  
can be as little as just a few millimeters in difference. So when you  
say that you had to go up 2 sizes, it's really not a very large  
amount even though it might FEEL like a large amount since your foot  
can feel a couple of millimeters pretty easily.