Today's workout

I just finished a sweaty 90-minute spin on the trainer. I can feel my fitness level increasing this past week or so, even with these allergies or cold I'm fighting. Now...here's where my personal challenge kicks in. I'm notorious for starting my training slowly and cautiously...UNTIL I start feeling like this. The legs feel strong, the lungs adapting, my mental attitude improving, etc. Then I go out and nail a tempo run (during base phase) at nearly race pace and think, "wow, that was amazing". Then, my base training shifts to basically various levels of tempo running and I've pretty much bypassed a very important phase of my training. Then I find myself overtrained and burned out...and likely injured as well. So my goal is to really fight that temptation to go out and "blaze" when I feel like I can and continue to build my endurance and overall fitness with mostly easy running and riding...until the time is right. I imagine I'm not alone with this dilemma.