"The loneliness of the long distance runner" by Alan Sillitoe (Harper Perennial, 2007)

First published in 1959. I think I might have read it long ago. I'd forgotten that the title story doesn't have a surprise ending. I think nowadays there'd be less literary compromise - the first-person syntax would be simpler. Amongst the other stories, which haven't aged that well, are many book readers, unhappy couples, dead fathers, loners, and challengers of authority.