whenever I start a new campaign on my adwords account, my adwords ads begin to run slower, does this happen normally?
Depends on how much your budget is, and how competitive the keywords are. It should be normal, that happened to me when I tried it out at first.
You can try "Accelerated method" of distributing ads. Go to Campaign Settings and choose this option.
google displays your ad right awa, but its limited to only google and less than 3rd position until the ad goes through review. After about 2 - 3 days you will normally see an increase in traffic because once the ad is approved it is syndicated and allowed into the top positions.