Farmington racewalker heads for 2nd Olympics

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When Kevin Eastler crosses the finish line of the 2008 Olympic men’s 20-kilometer racewalk in Beijing later this month, he’ll truly be crossing his personal finish line.

For what began at age 9 in his native Farmington watching older sister Gretchen racewalk around the track at Mt. Blue High School has led him to experience the Olympic spirit firsthand at both its birthplace in Athens, Greece, and now the emerging capital of China.

But now 30 and after waging a nearly yearlong battle with injuries that threatened his status as America’s top racewalker, Eastler says his second Olympic performance will be his last.

“I’m counting the days,” said Eastler of pending retirement. “I’m really excited about the race, but maybe for the wrong reason. I think as the days get closer I’m really going to be looking forward to competing, but at the same time there’s the realization that when it’s done, it’s over.”

The 6-foot-1, 170-pound Air Force captain – he has been selected for promotion to major, but is likely to leave the military this year to move with wife Sara and 4-year-old daughter Savannah from their current home in Aurora, Colo., closer to the East Coast – almost certainly will not medal in the 20K final, scheduled for Aug. 15.

The opening ceremony for the Games is Friday while events will be held Wednesday through Aug. 24.

When two-time Olympian Tim Seaman and Eastler finished 20th and 21st in Athens in 2004, those represented the best finishes by American racewalkers in that event since the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles – a field diminished by the decision of the former Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries to boycott those games.

“It’s much more difficult now,” said Seaman. “Back then there were just three walkers from the Soviet Union. Now there are three from Russia, three from the Ukraine, three from Lithuania, three from Latvia, three from Belarus … there are just so many more walkers to compete against.”

Winning the battle just to return to Olympic form has represented the biggest victory this year for Eastler, a four-time U.S. 20K champion and also a national champ at 50K and 30K.

After reaching the Olympic “A” qualifying standard for 20 kilometers by four seconds with a time of 1 hour, 22 minutes, 56 seconds in May 2007, it wasn’t long before Eastler’s body began to betray him.

Last fall he began experiencing lower abdominal pain that forced him to stop training for his bid to make the 2008 Olympics at 50 kilometers.

The U.S. 50K trials were scheduled for February, but his plans were derailed when his injury was diagnosed on Dec. 6 as a deep sports hernia. His choice was to rely on the uncertain timetable of just resting the injury or undergoing surgery.

With his Olympic clock ticking, he opted for surgery the next day.

“Kevin was in a lot of pain, and he just couldn’t train,” said Seaman, who had faced similar surgery. “I told him to get it done quickly. I did, and 12 days later I was training. His surgery was done differently, and it took him a full month to get back to his training.”

Indeed, that return to post-surgical training proved frustrating for Eastler, who had suffered his share of injuries in the past but had not had to face the knife.

But like any competitive racewalker endures kilometer upon kilometer of battles between mind and body in order to achieve the fastest time, patience was pivotal to Eastler’s return to form.

“You don’t realize how much of your body is affected by surgery until you go through something like this,” he said, “because it’s not just the area where you’ve had the surgery.”

By the second week of January thanks to “a lot of good therapy,” Eastler was back on the track if not completely back on track.

“When I realized it wasn’t going to get any worse, I started to train through the pain,” Eastler said.

Eastler entered the 50K trials, but only to establish a one-lap time on the outside chance that it might help him secure an Olympic berth in the unlikeliest of scenarios in which no one else qualified in that event – which didn’t happen.

So his attention turned to the 20K, an event in which he had placed second in the 2000 U.S. Olympic Trials and third four years later.

Soon even that bid was challenged by injury, this time knee tendinitis.

“I had experienced some pain there before, and in the past if I took off a week of training it got better,” Eastler said. “It took about three weeks this time.”

Seaman eventually convinced Eastler to head to Europe to train for three weeks, then enter the same May race in Spain where a year earlier he became the lone American to achieve the Olympic “A” standard.

And while Eastler didn’t dominate the field, his effort in that race spawned a boost in confidence.

“He was really feeling good about himself,” said Seaman. “I don’t think he was that fit by then, but he could race and not be limping, and that was huge for Kevin.

“It didn’t really surprise me, because the first thing I think of when I think of Kevin is his grit. He’s not a guy who’s going to start off real fast and just blow everybody away, but he’s steady and strong throughout the race.”

That set the stage for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials race July 5 at Eugene, Ore. Eastler remained in solid position for an Olympic berth, but could have been ousted had a competitor defeated him in the race with an Olympic “B” standard time of 1:24:30 or better.

He still was not at 100 percent, but while other top rivals went out faster in search of both the victory and the “B” standard, Eastler persevered with consistent lap times.

“Kevin’s training had been going well and had gotten him from zero percent of where he should be to about 70 percent shape at the Olympic Trials,” said Tom Eastler, who is Kevin’s father as well as a longtime racewalking coach and CEO of the North American Race Walk Institute, which seeks to provide funding to help Americans become internationally competitive in racewalking.

“He trains smart, races smart and he knows his body. One of his other great strengths is pace awareness. He planned to walk between 4:18 and 4:24 per kilometer, and he was right where he needed to be.”

When Eastler finished in 1:27:07.1, more than a minute ahead of second-place Matt Boyles, his Olympic future had been secured.

“Mentally I was very ready, and physically I was probably at about 75 percent,” he said. “By 2 or 3 kilometers I pretty much knew the race was mine.”

Eastler hopes to be about 90 percent by the time he competes in Beijing on the next-to-last day of the Summer Games. While there is hope he will better his 2004 finish, there’s the probability that may not happen on the challenging 1-kilometer Olympic course.

“I realize where I am relative to my competition, and my thought is I’ll be very fortunate to get to the top 20,” he said. “I’ll probably get lapped even if I reach that goal, and that will be tough.”

No matter where Kevin Eastler finishes in Beijing, given where he’s come from during the last 10 months, his major goal has been achieved.

“Making my second Olympic team really means a lot to me because of as much time as I’ve put in to do this,” he said. “I still battle aches and pains every day, and I didn’t know if I wanted to keep putting in the training, but I trained through everything and it’s paid off for me.

“Now I know it wasn’t a one-time fluke, I’m a two-time Olympian. I’m pretty happy with where I’ve been.”

eclark@bangordailynews.net

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