Alarmingly that result comes on the heels of a bit of a "low patch" heading into Christmas.
"I don't know why. Maybe motivating myself is always tough because you don't have anyone or too many adults to train with out here so that's kind of difficult," she offers in trying to reach some sort of self-reconciliation.
But that shouldn't come as a surprise to those who know her.
In the same blase manner, Nagel drops a thunderbolt that national selectors have included her in a New Zealand team (12 men and women each) to compete at the inaugural Nitro Athletics Series in Melbourne next month.
"That's kind of made me more motivated to get out there in the last couple of weeks when the training wasn't too bad but, not ideal leading up to a race, but it's the best I could do".
Undisputed world champion sprinter Usain Bolt headlines the series which has enticed some of the world's elite track-and-field athletes from Australia, England, China, Japan, New Zealand and the Rest of the World to the Lakeside Stadium with round one on Saturday, February 2.
Nine-time Olympic champion Bolt is in the Rest of the World equation for the series which
will stage round two on Thursday, February 9, and end with the grand final two days later.
The event offers fans the opportunity to savour a combination of strength, endurance, power and extreme energy which is set to "revolutionise" track and field.
"It's should be exciting to be a part of and Australia have a tough team so it should be cool," she says but a little in the dark on how it will work in her mile and two-mile stints.
But it's Friday's accomplishment that offers a candid snapshot of a mind that put into perspective athletics with life for someone who competed at the 2010 Junior Crosscountry World Championship in Canada to come to the realisation that a balance in life is essential.
"I didn't know anything going into this race because I haven't raced on tracks for quite a while now," says Nagel who last stepped out on an all-weather polyurethane surface in April last year when she was in the United States on a full American scholarship.
"I had a couple of workouts on a track and that was quite about it," says the Providence College, Rhode Island, double-degree graduate who returned home last winter.
The crown was the third national acquisition in six months for the Sport Hawke's Bay marketing and communications adviser.
The former Taradale High School pupil won the national 10km crosscountry title at Auckland Domain, which was heavy underfoot, a week before she started work in August last year.
Then she stamped her supremacy on the tarseal a month after that in Masterton, clocking 35m 14s.
Nagel explains that accomplishing goals on the track requires a subtly different approach to speed work compared with road or crosscountry circuits.
"Obviously it means a lot of things have been going right for the last two weeks so it's just matter of building on that and keep on going, I guess."
Whittling her time of 15:42, down to a B standard time of 15:24 over 5km, to make the cut for the Commonwealth Games Gold Coast next year is a major goal.
"It's definitely do-able but it's just a matter of everything coming right and the races panning out the way that I'd like them to."
She has raced against Burne, a strong runner, several times so she opted to just sit on her heels.
"I could have done a little more work but I just didn't know where I was at all."
After Melbourne she'll target the nationals at Porritt Stadium, Hamilton, in March but overseas meetings will be pencilled in after she liaises with her US coach, Ray Treacy, of Ireland.
In men's equivalent last Friday, fellow Napier Harrier Eric Speakman clocked 8:05.73 to finish behind favourite Hamish Carson, who won by 0.48s.
