[pct-l] Foot Expansion

[Tom Holz]

Ack, I can't believe I missed this thread.  Apologies if I'm covering old ground.  I used a barefoot running gait at hiking speeds on the PCT in 2010.  Yes, that's weird, but it allowed me to make high-mile days that would have given me shin splints and metatarsal pain if I had used my dysfunctional walking gait.

(I wear a 16EE on the trail, and have huge bony lumps on my heels--Haglund's deformities--so shoes have always been a problem.)

Anyhow, as a side effect of changing my gait, my feet got shorter because the arches strengthened and pulled up.  It was a shock to measure my feet in Oregon and fit into a New Balance 15.  They are still really wide, however.

Bigfoot


On Feb 4, 2013, at 8:25 PM, Diane Soini of Santa Barbara Hikes <diane at santabarbarahikes.com> wrote:

> 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.
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