Running Place Names in the UK and Beyond: What I Did When Microsoft Went Down
Written by Andy Hood · Ultra runner, cancer survivor and Runna ambassador
Published 13 November 2026
This week Microsoft had one of those days, and it sent me hunting for running place names. From Thursday evening (UK time), Outlook, Teams, Copilot and a big chunk of Microsoft 365 fell over around the world, and the problems dragged on into Friday morning. Emails stuck in limbo. Meetings that couldn't happen. Offices full of people refreshing a blank inbox and wondering what they were actually for.
Microsoft says there's no sign it was anything malicious, just a load of servers unexpectedly dropping out and the rest buckling under the strain. Which, if you've ever run the last 10K of a marathon, is a feeling you'll recognise.
So what does a runner do when the laptop gives up? The same thing any normal person would do. I went down a rabbit hole looking for towns and villages that sound like they were named by runners. Then I laced up and went out for a quick 5.
Here's what I found.
Running Place Names in the UK
Start Point, Devon
Every run needs a start, and Devon has a ready-made one on the South West Coast Path. Sadly, the name has nothing to do with start lines. "Start" comes from the Anglo-Saxon steort, meaning a tail, the same root you find in the bird name redstart. The better story is that sailors heading across the Atlantic didn't reckon their voyage had properly begun until they'd passed the Point. I'll take that.
Lapford, Mid Devon
Closer to home, Lapford is on the Tarka Line between Exeter and Barnstaple, with a request-stop station. So you can hop off the train and start your lap. It also comes with a ghost: the village is said to be haunted by a former vicar of its church, John Radford. Worth bearing in mind if you're doing your laps after dark (and if you are, here are my night running tips).
Tempo, County Fermanagh
Every good plan has a tempo session in it, and Northern Ireland has the village to match. Tempo sits at the foot of Brougher Mountain, so there's a hill finish built in. The name is nothing to do with threshold pace, though. It comes from the Irish An tIompú Deiseal, "the right-hand turn", possibly after a bend in the Tempo River. So it's a tempo run with course directions included. Charles Dickens is even said to have stayed at Tempo Manor in the 1860s.
Runwell, Essex
The closest thing in the UK to a genuinely running name. Runwell takes its name from the Running Well, an ancient spring between Runwell and Rettendon that still exists today and has been described as the only holy well in Essex. A running well, in a village called Runwell. Perfect, except the place-name experts say no one can be certain where the name really comes from. Of course they do.
Runswick Bay, North Yorkshire
In 1682 the whole village apart from one cottage slid into the sea. Remarkably, nobody died, reportedly because two mourners sitting up at a wake raised the alarm. The rebuilt lower village is reached by a road with a 1-in-4 gradient, which makes it the hill reps session of your nightmares. It's on the Cleveland Way too.
Mile End, London
Every runner's favourite unit of measurement. Mile End was first recorded in 1288 and simply means the hamlet a mile out from Aldgate in the City of London. A place named after a distance marker. Strava would approve.
Pant, Shropshire
Named for how you feel at the top of the climb. In Welsh, pant actually means "hollow", and the village sits right under the old mines at Llanymynech Rocks. Close enough.
Runcorn, Cheshire
Sorry, Runcorn, you're not one of us. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle spells it "Rumcofan", from Old English words for a wide cove or bay. Nothing to do with running whatsoever.
More UK Place Names With a Running Theme
A few more for the map: Runnymede and Runfold (Surrey), Runham (Norfolk), Runnington (Somerset), Trotton (West Sussex), Steeple Aston and Steeple Bumpstead for the steeplechasers, Hurdlow (Derbyshire) for the hurdlers, Bolt Head in Devon for anyone channelling Usain, Legbourne (Lincolnshire), and Gasper (Wiltshire), which is basically mile 24 of any marathon.
Put together, it reads like a session plan: Start, Lap, Tempo, Pant.
Top 5 Running Place Names Around the World
1. Marathon, Greece
The obvious winner, and the one with the biggest myth attached. The famous version has a messenger running about 25 miles from Marathon to Athens to announce victory over the Persians, then dropping dead. But the historian Herodotus tells it differently: a trained runner called Pheidippides was sent from Athens to Sparta before the battle, covering around 150 miles in roughly two days. So the real story isn't a marathon at all. It's an ultra. In 1982 an RAF wing commander called John Foden and a team of fellow officers set out to test whether Herodotus was right, and three of them made it from Athens to Sparta in under 40 hours. That run gave birth to the Spartathlon. As an ultra runner, I'm claiming Pheidippides. When the first Olympic marathon was held in 1896, it was won by Spyridon Louis, a water carrier, in 2:58:50. (For comparison, here are the average marathon times by age and gender today.)
2. Marathon, Florida Keys, USA
This one earned its name the hard way. Workers building the railroad through the Keys in the early 1900s were grafting night and day, and complained the job was turning into a real marathon. The name stuck to the local station. There's a posher theory that a writer picked it after a line from Lord Byron, but I prefer the railway workers' version. It sounds like every training block I've ever done.
3. Running Springs, California, USA
Up in the San Bernardino Mountains at about 6,100 feet, so it's a ready-made altitude camp. It was originally called Hunsaker Flats, after Abraham Hunsaker, an early member of the Mormon Battalion, which sounds much less like a running destination.
4. Runaway Bay, Jamaica
A beautiful stretch of Jamaica's north coast with a serious history behind the name. It's generally said to come from the bay's use as an escape route by enslaved people fleeing to Cuba, though another account links it to the last Spanish governor escaping from there after the English took the island.
5. Rush, County Dublin, Ireland
Like Runcorn, a total imposter. Its official Irish name is An Ros, from ros, a wooded promontory. It's often linked to Ros Eó, "peninsula of the yew trees", though Ireland's official place-names database disputes that. It was once known as the market garden of Ireland. No sprinting involved.
Running Through the Microsoft Outage: A Quick 5K
By the time I got back from my research and my 5K, Microsoft was reporting that services were starting to recover. My inbox was still a mess. My legs felt brilliant.
So next time the tech goes down, don't sit there refreshing. Pick one of these running place names, plan a route, and get out the door. Start Point to Lapford, tempo through Tempo, and finish panting in Pant.
Where's the best running place name you've come across? Let me know in the comments.
About Andy Hood: Ultra Runner and Cancer Survivor
Andy Hood is an ultra and endurance runner, a Runna ambassador and a testicular cancer survivor, writing at Running Westward Ho.
In 2021, testicular cancer stopped him in his tracks. Surgery and chemotherapy followed, and running went on hold. He came back stronger and turned his running into a mission: designing bold ultras each year to raise awareness, particularly around testicular cancer, and to support others going through it. To date he has raised over £28,000 for cancer and mental health charities.
He's also the founder of Check Ya Balls, a range of men's underwear designed to start conversations and save lives. His message is simple: check yourself, talk about it, and break the silence.
Everything he does comes back to three principles: Support. Advocate. Create.
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