Ran past, dreadfully hard (7)
I believe the answer is:
spartan
'hard' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'ran past dreadfully' is the wordplay.
'dreadfully' indicates anagramming the letters (a dreadful spelling).
'ran'+'past'='ranpast'
'ranpast' anagrammed gives 'SPARTAN'.
(Other definitions for spartan that I've seen before include "Not comfortable" , "Frugal" , "Rather austere" , "Without comforts" , "Ascetic - ancient Greek" .)