Slowness doesn't necessarily mean throttling. For Free edition, when usage limits are exceeded then compute can become temporarily unavailable. There also isn't a way currently yet to check if the Usage allowance for the day has been breached.
Try Checking whether the delay is mainly in serverless start up or in the actual workload. A tiny test in a notebook like:
spark.range(10).count()
If compute/runs start getting blocked entirely, then Free edition usage limits have kicked in. Wait for the usage window to reset or can sign-in with another to practice again.
For free edition specific issues, best place to raise is:
https://community.databricks.com/t5/databricks-free-edition-help/bd-p/Databricks-Express-Setup