How long should it take to fully charge my iBook?

Well, I haven't used my iBook's battery in a while since I found I was just putting unneeded charge cycles on the battery. So for the last maybe 3 months it has been used on and off with the AC plunged in at all time.
Today I took it outside to test my new Airport Express (checking the range) and after about 5 minutes I already got the "you are running on reserve power. plug in to ac" message! The battery used to last atelast 45 mins before doing that. The battery only has 279 cycles on it, which I found means it is coming to the end of its life.
However, I figured I might well run a full cycle and use it until it dies so I can charge it ALL the way up again. So like I said after 5 mins of being unplugged it said I was low on battery power. However, it wasn't until 15 - 20 mins later until it actually went to sleep and shut off. I thought that was interesting considering I was using the WiFi heavily and had the screen at 50% brightness.
Anyways, by now the battery had died so I came inside and before I plugged it in, I found that it was still giving power to the two usb ports as my bluetooth adapter light as still flashing, but the computer was so dead it would not turn on. So I left my bluetooth plugged in, and then tried to further kill the battery by plunging in a USB powered fan as well. I was waiting for the fan to shut off meaning the battery was COMPLETELY dead (wanted to do a full cycle like I said) but after 4 or 5 hours of running the fan, it was still going strong!
By then it was time for bed so I unhooked every thing, plugged in the AC charger and shut it down to fully charge overnight. This morning I go to turn it on (i'm back to leaving the AC in) and it would not turn on? I flipped it over and the battery still flashed one dot. The battery never changed. (the adter light was lit up so I know it was getting power.) I un plugged and jiggle it and then it started charging. So once it had enough power to turn on, I did so so I could watch the battery meeter.
*HERE IS THE INTERESTING PART:*
By the time OSX had booted, the battery was charged at 5% which is fine. However 10 mins later I checked it again and it was already up to 60%??!?! I then watched it and the percentage of charge was going up like the seconds of a digital clock. It seemed to be chairing very rapidly? It has now been about 20 to 25 minutes and it is reading 100% full.
Is this possible? I thought it would take at least 2 or 3 hours to full charge an iBook battery that was fully past that dead mark. I find it almost odd that it the battery is full after less then a half hour.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
Scott

What happens is that the weaker the battery, the less time it takes it to charge (and run down) because it doesn't take long to reach its lowered maximum capacity.
Although I never worry about my battery and leave my portables plugged in most of the time, that isn't necessarily the best thing for the battery.
Check out Apple's suggestions maintaining battery life and lifespan:
http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html
Information on battery technology:
http://www.apple.com/batteries/
Calibrating the battery for best performance:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490

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