Four Minute {Recovery} Miles

As is my won't,a Friday off work means a lie in and then a lunch time appointment at Franklin Field for a workout.
In recent and hopefully following weeks this will be for 4x1 mile repeats,after two less than stellar outings in the previous fortnite I was hoping for something better today.
Two ticks in the plus box b4 I even began today,no bastard wind at Franklin Field like last Friday and I donned my flats again to underline the fact they would make a difference over the mile repeats as they had over the 600 and 1,000 repeats on Mon and Wed.

Mile#1,1.17,1.21,1.19,1.14-5.11.57.A far cry from any of my recent mile repeats and confirmation that I'm heading in the right direction.
Mile#2,1.19,1.20,1.21,1.14-5.14.21.Another solid effort,over the coming weeks I need to lower the 1.19s and eliminate the 1.21s to make further inroads to lowering my splits.
Mile#3,1.22,1.24,1.22,1.18-5.26.27.Predictably on mile#3 is when it starts to get away from me but that's nothing a little strength and stamina over the coming weeks won't resolve.
Mile#4,1.21,1.23,1.21-68-5.13.58.Nice! no question today was my best set of mile repeats post 5th Avenue Mile,also no question regarding the flats,they've made all the difference this week.

But now for the stunner,it wasn't till after my #3 mile I realized I'd only been taking 4 minutes recovery not 5 minutes as usual!!
How did this come about? as a rule for my 600 and 1,000 repeats I wear two stop watches one to record my splits and the other to count down my recovery,I have until today not worn my other watch for mile repeats preferring to give myself a minute after the repeat b4 counting down to 4 minutes to begin the next,as I was catching my breath after repeat #3 I caught myself saying to myself"better start the other watch" and then realized I already had!!!
Since I'd only taken 4 mins between repeat #1 and #2 I opted to keep things uniform for #3 rather than take an "extra" minute and then second guess my final repeat.
Granted today was an accident,but guess what?I 'll continue to only take 4 minute recoveries in between mile repeats from now on I may just have stumbled on the key to unlocking faster mile repeats and hopefully faster mile/1,500m times,I've always lamented that repeats no matter what distance are only as good as the recovery,we could all be world beaters w/ extended recoveries....I want to be a world beater w/ diminished recoveries!!