Everyone’s body is different but try lighter and more frequent. 3x 20 minutes. You can always push faster, more frequent once you get past “it always feels like I’m dying”, but at this point you’re trying to convince your body, “this will be a regular thing, I need to be able to do this”.
Do 3x 20 and add in walks on off days. Anything to overall make your body raise its “floor” for cardio.
Taking days off is when your body immediately tells your lungs and heart “see I knew he was kidding!”
You can go from marathon shape to having running be a struggle at old levels with 4 weeks of inactivity. Most people go faaaar longer than that without exercising and think there is something wrong with or unique to them.
Our bodies want to save energy and not waste it burning calories to keep you in shape, so regularity trumps all. Go light, go often, and slowly increase pace, duration, frequency as it feels good. Your body will respond in time.
“remember when we even let 16 year olds browse the net? That was wild”
“Remember when we allowed anyone under 25 to browse the net? Unimaginable”
“Remember when we used to allow people who weren’t registered to one of the major political parties, and even women to browse the net?”
“Remember when we had a net?”