The section time records of the actual Hakone Ekiden from Wiki places Matsuse Genta at the 10th section with a 1:08:59 record - the exact same time as Kakeru’s record in his section.
Haiji stated that Kakeru was his “dream taken shape” and the “ideal form he never reached”. Kakeru had set a record in his section with the 10th section’s (Haiji’s section) record time. It may have been some kind of coincidence or it may have been intentional (don’t really know if the novel states their time as such or if the Production IG did it that way) but it’s like Kakeru set that record in behalf of Haiji with him being the ideal form and such. Anyway that’s all thanks for coming to my TedTalk
