He circled the track at Northwestern High School six times, completing 1.5 miles in 12 minutes and 28 seconds — four minutes under the cutoff.
Gilnord Estime Charles had already passed the civil service exam. His successful run on the morning of Jan. 14 got him one step closer to Baltimore's police academy, and one step closer to fulfilling his dream of being an officer.
Then the 29-year-old walked off the track and collapsed.
Two other applicants, both paramedics, rushed to his side, and an ambulance took him to Sinai Hospital, where he died.
The cause of death is still being determined, even as his family makes plans for his funeral Saturday in Prince George's County, and city police struggle with yet another death — this time of a man not yet an officer, but one who had aspired to join the ranks. On Wednesday, Officer William H. Torbit Jr., who was mistakenly shot and killed by his colleagues, was buried.
Charles had been in the military — his best friend and college roommate described him as "very disciplined, very straightforward, very strict."
The city's violent reputation, Police Department pay cuts and accusations by the police union on billboards that the mayor is making the city unsafe didn't matter to Charles.
"We're supposed to be here to help people," he told his wife, Danielle Charles, whom he married in May 2009 aboard the Spirit of Baltimore, the day after he graduated with honors from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore with a degree in criminal justice.
His family and friends remembered Charles in interviews and in postings on Twitter and Facebook — "We are blessed for the life that God allowed us to share with our beloved Gilnord," his wife posted to the hundreds of Internet mourners.
He seemed the type of recruit sought after by city police — mature, a college graduate and disciplined by the military. He also was raising a son, Jeremiah, who is going on 18 months.
His childhood friend and college roommate, Junior Gossin, made an addendum to his "very disciplined, very straightforward, very strict" description: "He had one of the biggest hearts."
Charles grew up in Silver Spring — he was practically neighbors with Gossin — and attended Montgomery Blair High School, graduating in 2000. He took a few college classes but really wanted to join the military.
He waited until Gossin, who was two years younger, graduated from high school, and the two enlisted in the Air National Guard — two days after the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The timing wasn't a coincidence.
"He and I understood that college was always going to be there," Gossin recalled. "We wanted to test the water and see how we could contribute as far as being a citizen." Both were based in Baltimore — Charles as an information manager, Gossin as a civil engineer.
After military service, both men went to college on the Eastern Shore. Charles studied electrical engineering but changed to criminal justice to so that he could reach for a job he had wanted since a youngster. He met his future wife while attending college.
Danielle was at a family reunion she had been reluctant to attend. She wandered into a game room at a hotel where Charles was working to help a friend and noticed he was playing a Mary J. Blige song that was among her favorites.
She asked him for a copy.
When she and her friends returned to the hotel from an evening outing, the music disc was under her door.
She called to thank him.
It was raining, and he asked that she call him when she got home to Baltimore to let him know she was OK.
She did.
It took a few more months before they started dating, a relationship that continued even when Danielle, a mental health professional, was transferred to White Plains, N.Y., and then back to Baltimore. They were married and had a child.
"He made me the happiest," Danielle said. "People told me they could feel the love just watching the two of us together."
Charles re-enlisted in the Air National Guard. A military spokeswoman said he was assigned to Andrews Air Force Base and up until his death was training with an aerial port squadron — responsible for moving cargo — at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
His active-duty status in the Guard was to end Feb. 1, perfect timing to join the next Baltimore police academy class that is scheduled to begin in the middle of next month. But first he had to get in. The tests included the written exam and the run, part of an agility test.
Danielle said her husband had only one medical problem she knew of — a few months ago, she said, he awoke fast from a deep sleep and jumped out bed, causing his blood pressure to plummet. He went to the hospital and underwent six days of tests.
"They couldn't find anything wrong," his wife said.
His sudden death, she said, "is truly a complete shock to us."