Python 3.8 is EOL and the LTS version of Ubuntu (20.04) that came with it is now out of standard support. The runners no longer have 3.8 bundled and so the 3.8 testing takes longer.
I'd like to align all packages to the same minimum version and ducktools-env already has the minimum version as 3.10 so I plan to drop support for 3.9 at the same time as 3.8, even if that version is not already EOL.