"She wanted us to have fun," crew leader and partner Margaret Rose said. "She didn't want to put anybody out — she was worried about us."

There were multiple costume changes for the crew. The grass skirt and coconut shells. The nurse outfit — whoa, baby. That Speedo-water wings-goggles-and-beach-ball thing. And too many odd props to mention.

"Our job was to make sure that time passed as quickly as possible," Rose said about entertaining Hutchison, who said she never knew what to expect. "It was nice to see her come in each mile with a smile on her face and leave with a smile on her face."

Rose figured the humor took Hutchison's mind off the enormity of the long, "daunting" roads through Death Valley, where the mercury rises to well above 100.

The nausea, as expected, came and went. "Nothing a little throw-up can't solve," she chuckled after the race.

A bit odd, that someone would want to do that to themselves. And along the way tourists in Death Valley would drive by, staring and pointing. German sisters Rahel and Agnes Brandt and their parents stopped to talk and take photos with Hutchison's crew and cheer as she went by.

As strange as it sounds — even Hutchison dubbed it "insane" when she read about it in 2007 — it's as equally a calculated, well-thought out endeavor. Adventure seeker Hutchison — she has her sights set on climbing Everest and is looking for sponsors — trained "scared" for Badwater. A flight nurse by trade, she studied the physiology behind heat training, increasing her blood plasma levels, teaching her body to sweat faster and decreasing her heart rate.

"Once accepted into the race, I read everything that has a reference to Badwater in the title," she said.

After all of that training, running ultras comes down to 10 percent physical ability and 90 percent mental mettle, Hutchison said.

"After that training has been used up, the rest of the race is enduring pain, nausea and resisting the overwhelming urge to drop out," she added.

Time passed during Badwater with Hutchison's five-member crew leapfrogging her every mile or so, giving her what she needed at each stop. Looking for that van every mile was a big deal.

"I ran this race one mile at a time, trying to find the van," Hutchison said.

Crew members reminded Hutchison to look up once in a while during the day and appreciate the beauty of where she was or to take in the blinking lights at night of other crew vehicles lined up miles behind her while she was high in the Inyo Mountains and they were in Panamint Valley below.