IT was 83 degrees by the time I got back to the car at the end of the Harlow 10. It was hot, it was humid, it was the hottest day of the year.

I was shattered at the end of what I thought would be a gentle 10-miler around the Essex town. Thank heavens for the early 9.30am start, because had the race time been later conditions would have been even worse.

I had originally planned to run a 10km at Tenbury Wells in Worcestershire which had been badly hit by the floods of recent weeks. I had e-mailed the race organisers to check whether the event was still on but had heard nothing.

After a pitiful run at Swanage the previous week, I reckoned what I needed was some distance in my legs. There's not much to choose from race-wise in the first week of August and so the Harlow 10 beckoned.

I had not been to Harlow for 25 years from the time when I spent a year there training as a journalist at the technical college.

The race didn't venture too near the town centre, instead it started and finished at the recently-built Mark Hall Sports Centre and took a route which headed up to the town park and back. The lowlight of the race was a back-breaking and gruelling climb at mile eight. Ordinarily this would not have been a problem, but after a stamina-sapping run in the extreme heat it was tough and many runners were forced to walk up the sharp rise.

I hate running in the heat and had nothing to give. I was counting the miles by the four mile mark. The race route wasn't that inspiring, though the marshals were there when it matterd with the drinks and sponge stations.

My time of 1hr 19min was slow, very slow, but to be honest I was pleased to have got round.

I had hoped to run two races in the weekend and had been due to run the Bushy Park time trial at Hampton Court in Middlesex. This is a popular 5km run every Saturday morning and is highly rated. I had just started out on my journey up the M3 to south-west London when I heard on the radio that there had been a double death in Winchester involving a woman and her young child.

I had to quickly turn round and head back to the office to work on the next edition of the Echo. I am hoping to rearrange the run for later this year.