Quote from Ding Chavez:
I think if I have any hope of getting a descent single segment time, I should just go for consistency, and then slowly start to incorporate risky ticks to bring the time down as needed. What do other Single Segment runners suggest?
I would simply suggest that you attempt all speed tricks that are not risky. By that, I mean only attempt tricks that will not really cost you anything if you mess them up. Tricks that cost you a lot of time if you mess them up are best to avoid, unless you're consistent with them or they save a lot of time. If you could get early Newborn, that would be really awesome though. Maybe you should put early Newborn off until you nail a good run without early Newborn. Then it won't be so bad to try to do early Newborn on your runs.