Different Strategy

For today's lunch run I tried doing things in reverse: this time I set a time limit and ran at a comfortable pace to see how far I could get. I wound up doing 3.41 miles in the 30 minutes I allotted myself. While the run was pain free, and I comfortably ran at a slightly faster pace, I felt much more fatigued in the last five minutes; this makes me wonder if it is a better strategy to soldier through at the same pace, slightly reduce my pace on days when I am more tired, or skip a day between runs while I'm first starting out. I know people who run every day, but they're experienced runners who are probably in good enough shape not to injure themselves due to fatigue and sloppy form. I plan to take the weekends off because, for at least the next month and a half, I have hockey every Saturday and Sunday in preparation for nationals, so I am guaranteed at least two consecutive days off a week. Anyone out there have any opinions out there? As of right now, due to the fact that I can only spare about a half hour a day, I would only be running shorter (~3mi) runs, so it's not like I'm really going for it. I plan on giving it a go again tomorrow, so I guess we'll see how my body feels about the matter; as it is, I intend to take it easy because this weekend's games are against a team from St. Louis that we will have to face in a couple weeks for regionals. I'd like to be in top form when we face off Saturday night because it's going to be a good game.