Configure countdown to continue after reaches its end, then the timer will start to counting up and will never stop until said so.
HTML:
<div id="clock"></div>
JS:
var fiveSeconds = new Date().getTime() + 5000;
$('#clock').countdown(fiveSeconds, {elapse: true})
.on('update.countdown', function(event) {
var $this = $(this);
if (event.elapsed) {
$this.html(event.strftime('After end: <span>%H:%M:%S</span>'));
} else {
$this.html(event.strftime('To end: <span>%H:%M:%S</span>'));
}
});