Where is Thumbtip, Where is Thumbtip 1/2/10

The weather this morning sorely tested my resolution to run every day this year. It was gulag cold. Dry ice cold. Neptune has a more hospitable atmosphere than we did in KC at 6:30a.m.
My snot froze so quickly, it burned. All my nose hairs were incinerated. My thumbtips were disconnected from my central nervous system within ten minutes-and I was wearing my warmest mittens. A prominent part of my genitalia suffered frostbite, which will probably result in increased sensitivity to temperature for the rest of my life. No, I don't see an upside to that. The cat is laying on my lap right now, and God, it burns!
The temperature was officially 1 degree just before I went stupidly out the door. One little Fahrenheit to warm all that air, and it did a piss-poor job. My trainers, which are so soft and light I usually can't hear my own footfalls, were turned into clog-like horseshoes. Had I not been in so much digital distress, the noise would have driven me crazy. Congealed globs of spit and snot stayed on my clothing, from which I just brushed them off. With some of my eight remaining fingers.
There were a couple of memorable moments, though. The first was the sight of a fire raging from a trash barrell in a park near downtown OP. There was a man standing near it, warming himself. Not the kind of vagrancy usually tolerated in our suburban Eden. Or, he was the Devil, pulling all the warmth from the world, and commanding it with his fingertips, so that we might question the existence of a benevolent God. Pretty unusual either way.
The other highlight was the early stage of what was surely going to be a riotously colorful sunrise, which I caught from a high point near the end of my run. Red was becoming purple and orange simultaneously, and the cruel coldness seemed to stop the clouds as they were stretching across the sky. It was a beautiful scene to have had all to myself, and one I wish I could have shared.
I got in six again today, albeit at a pace of 8:22 per mile, much slower than yesterday. The hostile weather may have slowed me, but it couldn't stop me. It may have frozen my special purpose, but I'm a middle-aged man, so I don't have much use for it anyway. The quest for perfection continues, my friends. Let the Devil keep my thumbtips!