I restarted mongos and it showed the elapsed time as part of the balancer as the Unix epoch timestamp

[root@domU-12-31-35-00-39-A1 ~]# mongodb-linux-x86_64-1.5.8/bin/mongos --configdb domU-12-31-39-06-2C-81.compute-1.internal,domU-12-31-39-06-29-52.compute-1.internal,domU-12-31-39-06-89-F1.compute-1.internal
Wed Aug 4 08:20:01 mongodb-linux-x86_64-1.5.8/bin/mongos db version v1.5.8, pdfile version 4.5 starting (--help for usage)
Wed Aug 4 08:20:01 git version: b21a7bbfddebd96575d6eebd8e45d20751b89d10
Wed Aug 4 08:20:01 sys info: Linux domU-12-31-39-06-79-A1 2.6.21.7-2.ec2.v1.2.fc8xen #1 SMP Fri Nov 20 17:48:28 EST 2009 x86_64 BOOST_LIB_VERSION=1_41
Wed Aug 4 08:20:01 SyncClusterConnection connecting to [domU-12-31-39-06-2C-81.compute-1.internal:27019]
Wed Aug 4 08:20:01 SyncClusterConnection connecting to [domU-12-31-39-06-29-52.compute-1.internal:27019]
Wed Aug 4 08:20:02 SyncClusterConnection connecting to [domU-12-31-39-06-89-F1.compute-1.internal:27019]
Wed Aug 4 08:20:02 [websvr] web admin interface listening on port 28017
Wed Aug 4 08:20:02 waiting for connections on port 27017
Wed Aug 4 08:20:03 [Balancer] updated set to: set1/domU-12-31-39-06-2C-81.compute-1.internal,domU-12-31-39-06-29-52.compute-1.internal,domU-12-31-39-06-89-F1.compute-1.internal:27018,domU-12-31-39-06-89-F1.compute-1.internal
Wed Aug 4 08:20:03 SyncClusterConnection connecting to [domU-12-31-39-06-2C-81.compute-1.internal:27019]
Wed Aug 4 08:20:03 [Balancer] SyncClusterConnection connecting to [domU-12-31-39-06-2C-81.compute-1.internal:27019]
Wed Aug 4 08:20:03 SyncClusterConnection connecting to [domU-12-31-39-06-29-52.compute-1.internal:27019]
Wed Aug 4 08:20:03 [Balancer] SyncClusterConnection connecting to [domU-12-31-39-06-29-52.compute-1.internal:27019]
Wed Aug 4 08:20:03 SyncClusterConnection connecting to [domU-12-31-39-06-89-F1.compute-1.internal:27019]
Wed Aug 4 08:20:03 [Balancer] SyncClusterConnection connecting to [domU-12-31-39-06-89-F1.compute-1.internal:27019]
Wed Aug 4 08:20:03 [Balancer] dist_lock forcefully taking over from:

{ _id: "balancer", process: "domU-12-31-35-00-39-A1:1280885444:1804289383", state: 1, ts: ObjectId('4c58e1b8f5c5a722ebc6568e'), when: new Date(1280893368823), who: "domU-12-31-35-00-39-A1:1280885444:1804289383:Balancer:846930886", why: "doing balance round" }

elapsed minutes: Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969