Stylin' Profilin' Freerollin'

I took part in the monthly 100K VIP freeroll on stars today. I started off by losing 1/3 of my chips on the first 3 hands. A few hands later I pushed with QQ to an obvious overbet with a lower pair and doubled through. From there I was able to stick around average in chips until we hit the bubble. The bubble burst and I felt pretty good to get at least $80 out of a freeroll, especially considering how bad I've been doing at tourneys lately. We got down to around 100 left and was still below average in chips and figured I needed to make a move soon. With about 8K in chips and the blinds 800/1600 I went over the top of a raise with AJ sooted. I rivered a straight and was alive again. I was able to run my stack up to about 30K with about 60 left. I found JJ UTG and raised about 4X the BB. Middle position chip leader comes over the top and I decide to call. He shows KK and I'm in serious trouble. Flop comes A10x, turn K, river, sweet sweet Q. The blinds are up to 3/6K and players are dropping like flies. I can find much of a hand for a while and get run down to 30K with the blinds at 4/8K. Folded around to me I make a 3X BB raise from the cutoff with J9. SB tanks for a long time and I know he has something decent but not great and I'm hoping he reads my standard raise as something very strong. He ends up putting in the rest of his chips (we were about equal) and I have to call and he shows A8 sooted. He hits an A on the flop and I can't pull out another miracle straight. I finish 29th out of 2500+ and pick up $350. Much needed. The quality of play in this tourney actually seemed very good. Much better than the last few Sunday Million's I played. This makes sense I guess, given that these are players who have qualified by playing alot over the course of the month.