In between stops, crew members improvised on how to handle their charge. They cut the tops off her shoes to give her swollen toes more room. They devised a cooling system for her feet without getting them wet. Drew Harrell cut the top off a plastic bottle to hold a sponge and bandanna in ice-cold water to cool Hutchison upon her arrival.

"Ahh, that sponge," she said Wednesday morning after an air conditioned evening at a hotel in Lone Pine. "That was key to keep me going in the hot sun."

Two 10-minute naps helped, possibly staving off the delirium and hallucinations she's experienced in other ultramarathons.

"That's all I needed," she said about the catnaps. "It just recharged me."

Before Badwater, she wouldn't have answered for certain whether she'd consider doing the race again.

"But it's so fun, now that it's over," she said. "I didn't do too bad for a rookie. So it makes me think, gosh, I could do it faster."

Feeling stiff but good Wednesday, sipping on an orange juice, she predicted going for her eighth finish at the Wasatch 100 Mile Endurance Run. "I'm actually excited for Wasatch this year," she said. "It will just be a fun run."

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Note: Writer Stephen Speckman was on Lorie Hutchison's support staff.

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E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com