Mark Atkinson is a husband, father and engineer. An avid reader and keen runner, he took his first tentative steps into publishing with his debut book Run Like Duck; a guide to running for the unathletic After winning the Running Awards Best Book 2019 category he built on the success to publish his second book Ducking Long Way; Ultra Running for the Rest of Us in August 2021. His first novel, Locked Down & Lonely is due out on 2022 and is a romantic comedy centred on two residents of a Milton Keynes apartment block during the tumultuous 2020 lockdown. With their plans for the year thrown into disarray by the approaching pandemic they are isolated and alone, only seeing friends and family remotely through the black box of online meetings.