Maine Maritime Academy sophomore Aylen Wolf runs in the middle of the pack during a recent Mariner cross-country meet. Courtesy of Tony Llerena Photography
Castine—Surry native and former George Stevens Academy cross-country runner Aylen Wolf is one of the top runners on the Maine Maritime Academy cross-country team this season.
Wolf, now a sophomore at MMA, has taken two top-five finishes in the team’s first three meets of the season, and finished in the top half of the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth annual cross-country invitational, out of 293 runners.
When he began his collegiate running career as a Mariner, Wolf was no stranger to the team, as his father, Bryan Wolf, served as the assistant coach. That connection was one thing that made him choose to run at Maine Maritime.
“I wouldn’t say that running was a priority for me when I was choosing a school, but it was something that I wanted to do,” he said. “With my dad being the coach, I had that connection, and everybody knows MMA around here.”
Wolf is a Vessel Operation Technology major at the academy, and between his classes, schoolwork, practices and meets, and working with the Bar Harbor Whale Watch service on Sundays, his plate is fairly full. Learning to juggle all of his commitments has been a challenge, but something he says he has worked on in the last two years.
“I was definitely busy in high school, too, but I’ve also been putting more of a commitment into my running now. I’ve run a couple marathons, and I qualified for the Boston Marathon but didn’t have time to train for it. I’m hoping to be able to get that opportunity again,” he said.
The transition from high school to college cross-country running was a bit of a learning curve in terms of training for Wolf. The races are longer, five miles as opposed to the five-kilometer races run at the high school level.
He has had the support of his family throughout the transition, a benefit of being from a town less than an hour away. His parents split time between his home meets and meets his brother Nayhm runs with George Stevens Academy. He is also living at home and commuting to Castine every day, and he said having the home life has been a benefit to going to school so close by.
“It’s nice to know you have someone to fall back on, to have that support,” he said.
Wolf and the rest of the Mariner cross-country team have five more meets scheduled for the season, culminating in the NCAA New England Regional Championship at Bowdoin College in Brunswick.