how about leave the ego home on easy days? i truly do not understand why some people think (though they probably wouldn't admit) their average pace on an easy run says anything about how fast they are (which in turn says something about how cool or good of a person they are).
i like to have the data, and actually find that if i can see pace and HR i can keep myself from pushing if i'm feeling remotely good. i just did 1 hour at roughly 8:20 pace and it was lovely.
i used to be decently fast, and consider myself a "better" runner than most of the people in my training group who run with the 8:00 pace group. but guess what? if running slow can help me recover and get in some volume, i have no problem getting owned on my easy days by the guy who thinks a BQ is actually an OTQ. maturity is a h3ll of a drug kids.