help_outline Skip to main content

News / Articles

Strider Spotlight - Kalliman Gomes

Stephanie Guyotte | Published on 4/25/2021

Strider Spotlight: Kalliman Gomes


If you’re an early morning runner around Methuen, you may have passed Strider Kalliman Gomes along the road.  Kalliman, 39, can often be found running before dawn, getting in a ton of miles before getting his kids off to school and heading to work.


In March, he ran 330 miles.  Just in the month of March.


Before we get to that, let’s look at Kalliman’s running history.  He must have been running for years and years, right?


Wrong.  It was only in 2016 that he discovered running.


Growing up in Brazil, Kalliman was a soccer player.  Running wasn’t really a sport for kids at that time.  Continuing to be an active athlete as an adult, Kalliman felt in 2016 he needed to improve his cardio so he went for a two mile run.  “It was really hard.  So I did it again the next day – and ran for 9 straight days,” he said.


Not long after, he decided to run his first race: the Earth Rock Run half marathon in Amesbury.  He didn’t have a training plan or a race goal, he just showed up, ran and had a great time.


“I got home and signed up for two marathons,” he said. 


In September 2017, he ran his first marathon and qualified for the Boston Marathon!


He saw some folks at the marathon wearing MVS jerseys and saw a sign about the club at Whirlaway, so he decided to join and signed up for the track program.  “I had no idea what I was doing (in training for Boston), but I caught the running bug,” Kalliman said.


He slogged through the memorable 2018 Boston Marathon.  “It was an experience I will never forget,” he said. “It was horrible and amazing.” He ran Boston again in 2019, finishing with a time of 2:50:38 – his best marathon time to date.


Kalliman continued to run various races throughout 2019 and by March of 2020 he had a personal streak of 965 days straight of running at least 1.5 miles.


Like many of us, the pandemic zapped his running mojo.  With all of the stress of the pandemic, quarantine, family, work and remote school, his streak ended. 


At the end of 2020, Kalliman decided he needed to get back to running and reignite his streak.


He started January 1, 2021 with a goal of at least 10 minutes (or 1.5 miles) of running every single day.  He felt good and was happy to be back to running. 


Feeling like himself again, he wanted a bigger challenge. So for the month of February, he would do 13.1 miles (a half marathon) every single day. He mostly ran early morning, sometimes finishing on the treadmill or after work.  He completed that challenge and finished the month with a total of 403 miles logged (because some days he ran more than 13.1 miles).


So what was next? How about four marathons in March.


For the first three weekends of March, Kalliman set up a marathon course from Methuen to Salem NH to Haverhill, using his sister’s and mother’s homes as water stops.  His fourth marathon was actually a 50K trail race in Rhode Island, where he placed 4th overall.


“Running is a big part of my mental health,” Kalliman said. “Track with MVS helped me a lot. Coach Sharon helped me so much with stretching, improving form and speed.  I would love to break the 2:50:00 barrier in an official marathon.”


Kalliman took it easy for the beginning of April – continuing his daily streak – but no long miles yet.  He plans to do a few more marathons this year.


“I’m dying to get back to track and MVS events,” he said. 

MVS AFFILIATIONS

Road Runners Club of America USATF - New England Mill Cities Relay