Tor is much slower latterly than it used to be

Yes.
Though its generally not advisable for obvious reason, if you find yourself needing to specify your first hop, use this.

EntryNode $fingerprint

Quoted from: circuit - How to change the entry node? - Tor Stack Exchange

Add this line to your torrc file, and restart tor. Verify in browser or tor logs that the circuit was built using the fingerprint provided and is in fact connecting to the entry node you want.

There are a few different ways to implement this idea/solution though, and you can specify multiple entry nodes and tor will pick from one on startup.

Look specifically at the ‘EntryNodes’ section on the man page, a quick hotkey for finding it is copy EntryNodes, control + f (command + F on Mac) and paste. Should be right next to strictnodes.

Or from terminal in linux, unix, Mac, or BSD, copy paste

man tor | grep --color=always -C 10 EntryNodes
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