For the past 21 years, the Ohio Republican has run in 88 marathons.
Schmidt got her daughter enthused by bribing her with promises of gifts if she completed the race. Emilie walked her first marathon in Hawaii in high school, finally finishing after six hours.
“I went to the hotel, took a shower and came back to the finish line to see her finish,” Schmidt said.
That focus on family also animates her next big goal for her marathon career: finishing her 100th. She’s planning to make it the Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon so her family can watch.
Schmidt, who runs on the National Mall every morning that she’s in Washington, has also brought lessons from her marathons to her legislating.
“As frustrated as you might be by the timing of it — it might be a year or a decade to get it passed — that’s the nature of the Hill, and that’s like a marathon,” she said. “You have to have patience, and you have to have the discipline to get things finished.”
Lois Lerner, director of exempt organizations for the IRS, arrives for a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the investigation of the IRS' targeting of political groups. Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment right to not testify and caused a protest from some committee members when she offered an opening statement and engaged in dialogue with members before invoking the right.
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