Some Limit Hold'em Tournament situations

I've been having so much fun playing tournaments, I ran down this morning to play in a live $60 + $10 limit hold'em tournament with 1 $60 rebuy at the local poker room. There were about 110 entrants, and the prize pool was roughly $13k where they paid 18 spots.

I played reasonably within the limits of the situations I faced except for 1 hand where I made a continuation bet on the river with A, Q high after missing both my nut flush draw and gutshot where my opponent was very likely to call (which he did). It was a very bad bet on my part; I should have just checked behind him on the river.

I took a brutal 1 outer with about 40 players remaining where the pot had roughly 3.5% of all tournament chips, to leave me with just a chip and a chair. This was not one of those all in preflop situations, but 2 big stacks going at it preflop, on the flop, and on the turn. Another person at the table later told me that my opponent always gambles with very risky hands. I'm was thrilled with everything about that hand except the end result.

Amazingly, I staged a comeback to have slightly above average chips with about 22 players remaining. Certainly I was lucky to make the comeback, but I believe that the decisions I made during several of those hands maximized my chance for a comeback.
The structure of this tournament is brutally fast though.

Once we reached the money, an interesting situation came up. I currently believe I made the right decision, but I'll post this hand for comments.

hand #1
Just in the money, ~16 players remain, 8 seated, avg chips ~20k. Blinds are $3/$6k. I have $13k on the button. CO has $4k, SB and BB have me covered, CO is a semi-solid player, SB is a very straightforward player, I have no experience with the BB player.
- preflop: folded to CO who pushes for $4k. I look down and find QJo.

What's my play?

I am 100% certain CO has me beat, but he has a huge range of hands that I believe I have 40%-50% pot equity if I can get him headsup. If I can get the blinds to fold I will only be risking $2k to win $13k. However, probably any hand that BB will call with will at best be a coin flip for me, and more likely he will have me dominated.
If I gamble and win, I'll have $26k, and have some breathing room or more likely the comfort to try to steal the blinds a couple of times. I don't care about moving up in the money until there are around 6 people remaining.

In the actual hand, I elected to push all in. The blinds folded. CO showed A9o and his hand held up.