Crawford will carry the Kiwi hopes in the women's half ironman but she knows the 70.3 distance will prevent her from capitalising on the special skill that remained hidden well into her adult life.
While the 34-year-old won the Port of Tauranga half earlier this month, it's the full ironman in which she excels. It's why her goals remain winning Ironman New Zealand and earning a top-five finish at the world championships in Hawaii, and why today's race will serve as an important preparation for those loftier targets.
That won't necessarily preclude a positive result on the Auckland waterfront, but the race will finish too soon for Crawford to utilise her rare athletic advantage.
"I'll obviously be giving it my all," she said. "It's just that I have a switch that goes off after about five-and-a-half hours, and that's when I'll be off.
"That's when I do the marathon in the iron distance, and the switch never goes off during the half distance. I'd love to have that top-end speed, because I really enjoy this distance, but for me it's always a secondary focus."
Crawford's current focus would have been unthinkable a decade ago. Having competed in swimming at a national level during high school, she enjoyed a more sedentary lifestyle as a young adult before a desire to find fitness led to an unexpected discovery.
"I didn't know I had a talent for his kind of thing," she said. "I was doing nothing at all -- I didn't do any exercise at all for eight years, once I left school, through university and into my working life. Then, at 25, I just decided to get fit and do a couple of those really small triathlons.
"I found that I had a real passion for it, increased the distance then found I had a talent for iron distance. I mean, how would you know that? It's not like you go and do nine-hour races at school."
School was instead spent honing a craft rather disparate to her day job. Her proficiency at violin saw Crawford eventually work with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, a pursuit she plans on continuing once her three-year-old son gets older.
"Since Benji's been born I've been busy doing that and it's been put to the side. But when he goes to school I'd definitely like to be able to have more time to practise and get back into it."
Neither motherhood nor music has subtracted from Crawford's affection for ironman but it was threatened when she learned she had a congenital heart defect that had been with her since birth. The initial news was a shock, given her profession, but she quickly set it aside and refused to let it dissuade her from endurance sport.
"You've got a short life and I'd rather be doing something I love and giving it everything than sitting around and waiting to see what happens. I really love the sport, I have a real passion for it, so I'm going to be doing it for as long as I can."
That passion will be on display in Auckland today, where Crawford has never raced but where she hopes to receive a warm welcome. After all, if she is unable flip a switch in the sixth hour, a bit of a boost from the crowd will certainly help her cause.
"I don't often get a chance to come up here to train or anything like that so it's going to be pretty special, going over the Harbour Bridge and running around the waterfront. I expect that there will be a fair amount of spectator support and, when you get that support behind you, it really pushes you to go deeper."
NZME.
