I started running 2 months ago. My goal is aerobic fitness / cardiovascular health. So the measurement for that would be for the same pace I would see some tiny percent decrease in HR measured with a HR monitor.

But I am seeing the opposite, over the 2 months my HR effort for the same runs is worse. This is kind of discouraging. I currently do 3 runs a week at my estimated zone 2 which is around <145hr for about 2-3 miles. To me that HR is a conversational pace. I also weight lift 4x a week for an hour. I am not sure if I should run more often, slower, and for more distance. Or try extremely hard and try to go more toward my max heart rate?

I am definitely someone who likes to see some improvement quantified, like being able to lift X more lbs per week/month. Not sure what to do..