My plan is to boot it past Leon. I will probably stop at Decathlon to get another can of gas and possibly some more walking pole tips, but my aim on the last day of the Vadiniense is to end at either Puente Villarente or ideally Archahueja. I would prefer Arcahueja, but the albergue is temporarily closed and may not be available when i get there. But my aim for the next day is Cabanillas, then have an easyish day after that to Buiza.
I have been to Leon many times in the past and dislike cities, well I dislike lots of people. I tend to meltdown quickly when i'm in areas with large numbers of people. I find being around lots of people mentally draining. The Cabanillas albergue is a small one and Cabanillas isn't massively far from Leon. I think in total, it's about a 27km day to walk from Arcahueja, or a bit more from Puente Villarente. Either way it's well inside my happiness zone of 32km.
After that I will be doing Buiza to Pajares (the first 5 star difficulty day), then Pajares to Benduenos (short but toughish day), Benduenos to Mieres (probably stay at the university), then next day into Oviedo. of course if I reach Mieres and have a ton of energy left and it isn't too late in the afternoon I may well go all out and aim for Oviedo on that day. once I have been trekking for over two weeks, I open up the ability to do the occasional 40km day if I feel like it, sometimes a little more, but my feet start to complain a lot at 40km. I once did a 45km to hit a deadline and that was kind of hard. But we'll see. From my rough calculations I should be able to easily hit Oviedo by the 20th if I just did the Gronze stages. i will be going faster and longer than the Gronze stage plans, probably aiming on flatish days to be doing 32km back to back.
What was water availability like from Potes, onwards? Every village in front of a church or in a fountain? Or do you have to search harder for it (graveyards, etc)?