England star Kelly Smith checks in from San Diego, where the WUSA’s Philadelphia Charge is in preseason camp. She talks training and taking naps in the fourth installment of her column on SoccerAmerica.com. BY KELLY SMITH Training camp is going really well. We have 26 players in camp and we’re training twice a day. The sessions are okay, not too hard, because our bodies are not to used to training twice a day. We’re playing a lot of soccer and doing fitness tests — tests for stamina, vertical jump, a 300-yard shuttle test, beep test. The U.S. Soccer Federation has asked for the results of those tests, from all eight teams, to be handed in.* I know a couple of girls have friends on the New York team, which is also training in San Diego. They’ve been talking back and forth. When they were doing their tests [in New York], they couldn’t do them because the weather was too cold. With the big snow storm that was supposed to have hit, we’re very glad to be out in very nice weather. I thought it would be hotter, though. Whenever you think of California, you think of 80-degree weather. We’ve had rain, clouds and some sun, but it’s definitely better than the New Jersey weather I’m used to at the moment. Like old women. When people come back from the first training session — around 11:30, and then we have lunch around 12, 12:30 — everybody goes back to their rooms and takes a nap for about an hour, hour and a half. We meet up again at 3. It’s like we’re old women, taking an afternoon nap. I’m doing okay. It’s hard. I’m very tired at the end of the day. I’m not used to training like this. By 7 or 8 o clock at night, after dinner, I’m ready for bed, to get up early for the next session at 7 in the morning. We train in San Juan Capistrano and stay at a hotel in Dana Point. It’s nice, because I can see the Pacific Ocean right from my room. We have a couple of restaurants nearby, too. We’ve had one day off so far, and some of the players went to the mall. I went to the harbor with one of the players. It’s good to be away from the hotel, because we’ve been here a lot. Finally, some games. The best part of training camp is playing. It’s really competitive. It gets everybody really excited. Everyone just wants to get playing and moving. We have played an 11 v. 11 intersquad scrimmage, a full game, and we played a local club team, the [Southern California] Blues. We beat them heavily. I think it was 10-1. It’s hard with these 26 players to get everybody 90 minutes, so eleven started, and another 11 came in at halftime. And we subbed a couple of people, too. It was good to play against some good opposition rather than your teammates day in and day out. I scored one, in the second half. Ouch! Overall I’m enjoying it. The girls are kind of young and everyone’s getting on really well. Here’s an anecdote for you. Liu Ailing, our Chinese teammate, doesn’t speak much English. She has an interpreter with her. After practice, some of the girls are teaching her to say “sore,” like “sore muscles, ouch.” We hear her saying after practice “sore,” “ouch.” It’s pretty funny. But she’s doing very well with speaking English. A couple of us have said how hard it must be for her. It must be frustrating for her. But she’s been playing really well and adjusting pretty well. (English international Kelly Smith set NCAA career records with 3.41 points per game and 1.49 goals per game while at Seton Hall, where she also served as an assistant coach. Philadelphia chose Kelly and Doris Fitschen with the second pick in the WUSA’s foreign draft. Kelly’s column appears monthly on Socceramerica.com.) *Editor’s note: The WUSA forwards the results of the fitness testing to U.S. coach April Heinrichs, who will use them to compare the standards of the WUSA players to her senior national team members.