I just managed to read all the way through this thread. Excellent stuff! And fun to read how a fellow former BAA runner is doing (Hi Van!)
I just wanted to agree with some of Hadd's points and give my own experience
1. HRMs and race-pace+x guidelines are especially helpful when you cannot observe someone in practice and it appears they may have different standards as to what 'easy', 'medium', etc. paces are. However, once you learn to know your body well, I think they become increasingly less important. I trained religiously with a HRM for about a year (living in Rome, actually, when I had no regular coach) but have barely touched it since. These days it is pretty common for me not even to use a watch on interval workouts. I just run by feel.
2. The easiness of easy runs. My easy run pace is about 7:30 and I just ran a 2:19:40 marathon. Wejo has repeatedly said his easy run pace is in the same area and he has run quite a bit faster. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that it is not necessary, and may indeed be counterproductive, to run your easy runs all that fast. I've said before, on another thread, that this is one of the aspects of Daniels' book that bothers me most -- his prescribed easy run paces are way too fast for me, and not just for me, I suspect. You should not imitate anybody's easy run pace, ever. Easy means easy for you, and it could be quite fast or quite slow. Just be honest with yourself or, as Hadd suggests, force yourself to be honest by using a HRM.
3. Peanuts. On the theory that you should give in to your body's cravings (within reason :-), I've been muncing on peanuts as a snack for about 2 years now. Two summers ago I found myself eating them quite regularly, and I've continued since. Not in large quantities, mind you, but a handful a couple of times a week. I haven't noticed specifically that they help recovery, but I find that they feel like something my body needs. It was interesting to read the research abstracts Hadd posted on this issue.