Her effort in the half-marathon was just one crutch-racing accomplishment in a surprisingly crowded field. When Nolting returns to two-footed running in a few weeks, she will leave unchallenged the record for fastest ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro on crutches (4 days 20 hours 30 minutes). The same holds true for the record for the most marathons on crutches (six). Her feat will not even rival the biggest crutch-racing news of last year, when a man with an arthritic knee finished a 5-kilometer race in 44 minutes.

But determined to mark her legacy, she has applied to Guinness World Records to mark her own time as best for a female racer on crutches in the half marathon.

As with any record, there are strict rules to qualify. The same leg must be off the ground the entire time — no switching — so some athletes tie the leg in place to keep it bent. There are also aggravating pains: chafing under the arms, blisters on hands, impact vibrations jolting up wrists. Racers using crutches complain about gear they consider woefully old-fashioned. (Nolting used traditional armpit crutches, rather than the nimbler forearm crutches often used by disabled athletes.) And to top it all off, runners are not particularly known for their upper-body strength.

Before her unanticipated transition to crutch-racing, Nolting had appeared in the films “8 Reels of Sewage” (2012) and “Killing Slashers” (2013), as well as a few commercials. Around the same time, she developed a passion for running and raced in a few half-marathons, with a best time of 1:54:30. She trained with a 200-person outdoor fitness group, part of a network called the November Project, and was planning to race the Revel Mount Charleston Half Marathon through the Nevada desert in May.

Then came a midrun fracture of her left foot in April — and two days in bed stewing over what had happened. Nolting’s doctor, who is also in her fitness group, told her that she could keep exercising, provided she stayed off her foot.