Getting down about pace

I'm sure lots of seasoned runners will be along with advice soon but wanted to throw my tuppence in.

First, you're doing brilliantly! Well done for getting into it and turning things around.

Second, men are built differently. They just are. My husband has huge muscles without even weightlifting - my daily work in comparison yields almost nothing. They have bigger lungs and entirely different physiologies. There are reasons we split by sex in competitions.

Third, personally, I don't think we were meant to run long distances as humans. We were built for quick sprints when needed, and a lot of slow movement generally. Slow, controlled steady jogging is much better for you (and your knees) then sprinting at speed for ages.

The main thing to focus on is, does it make you feel better compared to you before? (Not compared to anyone else, they don't matter.) Are you feeling improvements over time in other ways than speed?

Firstly, don't compare yourself to your husband of all people! Whenever I glance at my Strava feed, across all levels of commitment/ability the speed gap between men and women is pretty stark.

I am a big believer in 80:20 to increase speed - run 80% of your mileage at a deliberately easy pace (so if that is 8min/km do that and ignore the numbers - don't cheat yourself by running your slow miles fast!) and do 20% properly devoted to speedwork (which I would probably do as intervals rather than tempo or hills). I hate intervals but they do make a difference for me where tempo runs don't so much, partly because I suspect I don't really tempo run as distinctly 'fast' as I should do.

Might also be worth looking at drills to improve your cadence?