BEIJING -- Kevin Eastler knew this was going to be it for him, that the 2008 Olympic 20-kilometer race walk would be his last competitive race.

His 30-year-old body was breaking down bit by bit this year. A sports hernia suffered late in 2007 led to surgery. During recovery his knees started bothering him. More lately, it's been his hamstrings, which have been sore since he won the U.S. Trials back in early July.

So even though he finished 43rd in the Olympic racewalk Saturday morning at National Stadium, completing the course in 1 hour, 28 minutes and 44 seconds, Eastler was pleased with the effort.

"I'm glad I was just able to put together a run," he said. "I was just a minute-something off my Trials time (1:27:08) and I had some pretty even splits.

"I had to walk with pain. I'm just glad I was able to finish what I started."

Eastler settled into an easy pace right at the start and never tried to stay with the leaders.

"There wasn't much else I could do," he said. "When you*re injured 90 percent of the training season, there's not a whole lot you can do."

Eastler, a Farmington native who graduated from Mt. Blue High in 1995, had hoped for a top 20 finish.

He finished 21st in the 2004 Athens Olympics and wanted to better that.

But, he said, even if he were healthy, that would have been difficult on Saturday.

First, the temperature reached into the high 80s. Second, the pace was really fast. Russian Valeriy Borchin won with a time of 1:19.01. Five other runners finished under 1:20, another three under 1:21.

"To finish in the top 20, I would have had to have been close to an American record (1:23:40)," he said. "And even if I had been 100 percent, that would have been difficult."

Placing 43rd out of 49 runners who finished -- two others were disqualified -- was as much a tribute to the field as anything, he said. "I'm happy with what I did," he said. "I'm just not at that level."

Eastler plans on leaving the Air Force in the fall and joining General Electric Energies, where he hopes to work in renewable energies. He'll move to a home just outside Albany, N.Y., bringing him much closer to Maine than he is now, living in Aurora, Colo.

And he will leave the sport he starting competing in when he was 9 years old.

"I think it's a good time to exit the sport," he said. "I feel good about what I did."