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Ah yes, the dreaded intial breakdown period. How I know and loathe you.
I ran track and XC in both high school and college. All throughout high school and into my sophomore year of college, I basically took the summer off from running and then pounded my way into racing shape the first month of XC. In hindsight, I probably sacrificed 15-30seconds off my finish times at the end of the season in XC by being lazy. Since college, I've had several flirtations with running, some more serious than others but one serious enough to win prize money in local races and set several PR's, even over my college times when I was in damn good shape.
So that's my pedigree, here's my advice - either find someone that's either at your level or slightly ahead and use them to push you or use a training log. You will go through the "out of steam" period regardless, but having someone there beside you will get you out there running the next day. If there's no one available, start a log book detailing how far and fast, conditions, route and thoughts. Get compulsive about keeping it. Being upset about empty days isn't a bad thing (as an aside, I had a college buddy that was admitted to the hospital for bronchitis one March and kept checking himself out AMA so that he could stumble through a 2 mile run at 8 minute pace [very slow for us] to avoid empty squares. He was completely mental, but that's what I'm talking about.)
"Breakdown" is going to happen, and there's not much you can do about it. It's the body's way of self-regulating energy levels. If you can get through it, you'll find that your runs are much more enjoyable, you don't need as much sleep and your energy levels are much higher during the day. It's really just a question of pounding through it without hurting yourself. You should look at it as a very good sign that you're about to jump up to the next level instead of a problem.
Good luck!
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