That bit about your clock gaining time after ditching the alarm hit close to home. My sleep schedule is so messed up, I'm pretty sure my watch runs slower just to avoid showing me how late I am. Gibson.karen might be onto something with the battery thing, but in my case, I think my chaos just breaks physics a little. Once I skipped my morning coffee for a week, and I swear my microwave clock started blinking 12:00 like it gave up on time itself.
But come on, is your clock really breaking the laws of physics? It sounds like you just noticed the time more because you weren't being jolted awake by an alarm. Old clocks get weird, it happens. Maybe you're just more aware of the chaos now that your routine is gone. Isn't it more likely that the clock is just faulty and you're connecting dots that aren't there?