Ok, well I thought I was going to give you some good advice on a local 5k but it sounds like you'll get dropped off 5k from your bunk.
1. Focus on sleep. You need the recovery.
2. You need high quality nutrition right after you workout.
3. Don't over do it. More is not better. Better is better. You will not be able to with stand 2x day's and 3x day's.
4. Flexibility. Ever see a little kid get twisted up falling off a couch or trampoline and then they are right back up the next minute. That's those young muscles and tendons. You need to be as flexible as possible. I would recommend going to Physical Therapist and get your hips and shoulders looked at. You need to take care of any lingering issues before you go to (appropriate acronym here). This is also where YOGA comes in.
5. Running will injure you, eventually. Some folks are super gifted and can pile on the miles very quickly. Others can't. You need to know which you are. I would play it safe in the build up of your mileage between here and there. No more than 10% per week.
6. If you have time and energy get a HR monitor. It will give you lots of insight on how you are working out. I mostly used mine to make sure that I wasn't going too hard too often. It was easy to get it real high and keep it there, but much more difficult to keep it in the aerobic zone.
7. You need to go into this fully charged. The two weeks before you need to back off your training quite a bit. Use this time for rest and recovery. Eat well. You will not lose any fitness. You should do something like 50% of the volume you were going. Just enough to keep the blood flowing.
A couple follow up questions:
What is 1 hour of cardio look like?
What does PT till I'm too tired look like?
What does give it hell after work look like?
How many weeks until it starts?
My major concern is that you are going to blow yourself up between here and there with pure power of will. I can really understand you motivation and your desire to be ready to reach your goal. But, you're not 18 any more. You have 16 more years of life to go on. Use that to your advantage.
