Mini Tournament Question B&M

[ronmar]

We have a mini tournament here in my local poker room every weekends for the purpose of drawing players for the cash games. I need advice at least on how to approach the tourney since its way too different in what I read in books.

General scenario of the tournament:

a. usualy around 30-40 players, so there would be usually 4-5 (10 handed)tables w/ 6-7 players starting the game per table and the vacant seats are blinded off.

b. starting chips are 5k, rounds at 15-20 minutes and blinds are:

lvl 1 100-200
lvl 2 200-400
lvl 3 300-600
lvl 4 400-800
lvl 5 500-1000
lvl 6+ double the blinds and antes start at lvl 8 w/ 1000

One rebuy until level 5 and additional add-on at level 5.
Rebuy will give 5k in chips while the addon is 10k.

My problem is at level 1 M is already around 16. And rounds are too short(15mins). I noticed that if I keep on playing moderate strength cards and miss the flop, my stack will quickly dwindle.

Would it be much better if I just follow Sklanskys Tournament System for begginers?

But I need to modify the cards to play, since the rounds are too short. But I will still apply the push or fold style.