- I'm in that zone with this shoe, dude. Yeah.
Is it weird if I put it on here?
I can put the shoe down or should I keep holding it?
That sounds right, right?
Now, I'm in my head.
(chuckle) Yeah.
It didn't feel weird to put the shoe down.
Giving you more room for your foot.
Giving me room for a big foot? Okay.
And people are gonna yell at me for stamping on a Pendleton.
You know (laugh)
Hey, I'm Allan with REI and I'm here to help break down
the process of sizing and fitting your running shoes.
Today, we'll go over how to find your shoe size at home,
how to adjust your fit
and how to address some common fit issues.
At REI, we encourage every...
I don't know why I waived...
At REI, we try to encourage everybody to size their feet.
It sounds like a street diss like, check your foot size!
(laugh)
At REI we encourage folks to check their foot size often.
So if you're at home, we'll show you how to do that now.
Let's grab a few sheets of paper and some markers
and we'll get down to it.
This next step might be a little bit easier
if you have help from a friend,
but you can probably do a pretty good job on your own.
So make sure you're grabbing the socks
that you'll be running in
and stand up on each sheet of paper.
You wanna try to distribute your weight pretty evenly,
trace each outline of your foot and try to keep the pen
as straight as possible.
All right, so now you got your outline of your feet.
This is my left foot.
And what you're gonna do is just take your tape measure
and measure from your heel to the longest part of your foot.
Next we'll take my right foot.
You wanna take the longer of the two measurements
and compare it to this chart.
Do you want me to point to a fake chart or do I just keep...
(laugh)
I'll link the chart in the description below.
So it looks like my measurement put me right at
about an eight and a half.
Generally at this stage, we recommend you go half size up.
So I would get into a size nine shoe.
We make this recommendation because when you run,
your foot actually elongates.
So we wanna make sure your toes have some extra rooms.
So they're not banging up
against the front part of the shoe.
The next thing you keep in mind is width.
So, let's grab our tape measure again
and measure our outlines.
And we're gonna measure the widest part of our foot.
So we can grab our soft tape measure
and it looks like for me, on my right foot,
I'm coming in at a four, just underneath.
If I take my left outline, looks like I'm coming in
just underneath a four as well.
Once you have your measurement and compare it to the chart,
you'll notice that you fall into a letter category.
In the U.S., width is measured in letters,
with "B" being about normal for women
and "D" being about normal for men.
If you find that your measurement
is putting you past either a "B" or a "D",
then you might wanna look for a model
that comes in a wide.
So now you've got your length and you got your width.
If you're still having trouble fitting into a size shoe,
and you know, both of those measurements are right,
another consideration might be volume.
Volume is basically the measurement of room inside a shoe
that can accommodate your foot.
You'll see here, we have a shoe
with a pretty average volume, and here we have a shoe
that takes up a little bit more volume,
giving you a little bit more room.
If you still have a few questions about volume,
give us a call and we're happy to help you out.
So now that we know our size
and we got a pair that we think might work,
let's put it on and see how it feels.
So once the shoe is on, we can check for a few key things
and we'll start from back and go front...
And we'll check a few things
to make sure everything feels okay.
We'll start with the heel.
The heel should feel like it's really cupping you in there.
And not a lot of movement going around.
You should feel pretty snug there.
The midfoot should feel like it's giving you a hug?
There can be some wiggle room,
but you really shouldn't feel really sloppy there.
Next step is the toes.
The toes should have enough room to wiggle them around
and you should definitely feel
like you have some length leftover.
But how much length is too much?
To check this, we're gonna make sure
that our feet are equally weighted
and see how much room is left
between the end of your longest toe and the shoe.
If you put your finger down,
you should have about a thumbnail's width
between the longest toe and the end of the shoe.
Next up is a quick trick to check out
width and volume on the foot.
If you take your two fingers
and you put it down the center part of the shoe,
and you notice that it's covering the eyelets,
it might mean that there's too much room in the shoe
and you're having to over-tighten.
Conversely, if you take your two fingers
and you put it down the center of the shoe
and there's actually some laces leftover,
it might mean that there's not enough room in the shoe
and you may look for a wider width
or a shoe with a little more volume.
Keep in mind that this last trick
is just a general guideline.
So if you have questions or concerns
about room in your shoe,
give us a call and we're happy to help you out.
So let's talk about some common fit issues in running shoes.
Bunions can be a common fit issue, so we'll start there.
If you have bunions or you think you might,
you may have noticed
that there might be more wear near the big toe
or the pinky toe on shoes you already own.
You may also notice that when you try to put on
a new pair of shoes,
there may be some discomfort around those areas.
If you find yourself in this situation,
you may wanna try something with either a wider toe box
or something that has a foot shape toe box,
to give yourself some more wiggle room
and to give yourself some space.
You may also try a thinner sock
to decrease the friction inside the shoe.
So another common issue near the toes might be blisters.
Blisters can form on any part of your toes,
but commonly occur on the sides or on the tops of your toes.
On the bottoms of your toes, right?
I feel like I get blisters a lot on the bottom.
If you find yourself with blisters,
I really recommend some toe socks.
These Injinji socks are great for decreasing the fiction...
Fiction? (chuckle)
They tell the truth.
They keep your toes nice and separate.
So they decrease the rubbing up against each other.
Next up, we have toe bang.
Which basically means that your toes
keep jamming into the front part of your shoe.
Here again we wanna emphasize to make sure
that you have a thumbnail width
in-between your longest toe and the front part of your shoe.
If you're pretty sure your length is right,
but your toes keep jamming up
against the front part of your shoe,
then the next thing I'd recommend is the runner's loop.
We have a video to this lacing technique
and we'll link that down below,
but the idea is pretty simple.
You just create these little loops
with that extra eyelet on the back part of the shoe,
and then you run the laces through those loops.
Once you cinch down,
you'll notice that your heel tends to lock in
and it'll prevent your foot from sliding forward.
So now we'll talk about some fit issues
revolving around heels.
One of the most common ones is heel slippage
and heel blisters,
which basically means
that your heel is not snug enough in the back
and it moves around a bit.
Here again, the runner's loop can be really helpful
as it really locks down your heel
and prevents it from moving around.
If you still feel like you're getting some blisters
in your heel and the runner's loop is not enough,
then we recommend getting some padded socks in the heel.
Padded socks can take up extra volume,
which basically gives you a snugger fit
and prevents that heel from moving around.
If you've tried the runner's loop and the padded heel sock,
and you still feel like you're having some heel issues,
you might need a shoe with a more narrow heel cup.
So come see us or give us a call
and we'll be happy to help you.
So now let's talk about some fit issues
that can happen on the top part of the foot.
This might be of concern,
especially for folks that have higher arches.
Again, in this instance,
we really wanna encourage you to use our two finger trick.
So if you're using that two finger trick
and you know, you're right in that zone,
to make sure that you have enough room in the shoe
for your foot, then we can recommend some window lacing.
I'll link to a video below for this lacing technique,
but the idea is pretty simple.
Essentially, you find the area of your foot
that's rubbing up against the shoe
or needs a little bit more room
and you skip those eyelets and go straight up.
This essentially gives you a window of space
for that part of your foot.
So that covers some common fit issues that we see,
and we hope that's helpful in your shoe.
Maybe I'll just leave it there...
Or do we wanna be hopeful that it helps them?
(laugh)
Remember that if you're having ongoing issues
or more severe issues to check with your doctor first
before making your next decision.
So we've covered finding your shoe size,
adjusting the fit and addressing some common fit issues.
I'm hopeful that that helps answer some of your questions
around fitting your running shoes.
Remember that we're always here to help.
So come on in or give us a call
and we'll be happy to continue the conversation.
You're telling me to stop, dude?
- Okay...? (chuckle)