We've all been there: You're out on a run, and you're feeling great. But then, out of nowhere, you hit a wall. Your legs feel heavy, your breathing grows labored, and you're not sure you'll be able to meet your distance goals for the day.

If you only had a little nutritional boost—something like, say, six medium-sized tomatoes—you'd get the energy you needed for that last burst. But running while carrying six tomatoes comes with its own set of complications. They keep slipping out of your hands and bouncing away, and your heart rate slows when you're constantly stopping and kneeling to look under park benches or bushes. Or if you run at the gym, you notice that the staff winces every time they see you, and you're pretty sure you've heard them whispering and calling you "tomato guy."

If that sounds familiar, you'll be thrilled to learn that a Japanese juice company, Kagom, has solved your eating-tomatoes-while-running dilemma. And they've done it with a little robot that sits on your shoulder and feeds you.

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Because of course they did! Why wouldn't it be a little robot? What were you expecting, one of those beer helmets that idiots wear at sporting events? That's just obnoxious! No, a robot on your back is the much more sophisticated choice.

It's called a Tomatan, and it's a thing of rare beauty. Check out the video above to see how it works.

The robot, which weights about 18 lbs, rides along with you—like Yoda clinging to Luke Skywalker in Empire Strikes Back—and waits for your mid-run hunger to kick in. You simply pull a lever in the robot's leg and the Tomatan dispenses tomatoes—up to six!—into your face hole.

Which begs the question.... why?

We already know that tomatoes are healthy. Liz Applegate, Ph.D., the director of sports nutrition at University of California Davis, calls them "superstar veggies. Studies clearly show that consuming tomatoes routinely significantly lowers rates of certain cancers—particularly prostate cancer in men. Also, thanks to the carotenes—lycopene in particular—tomatoes provide cardiovascular health protection."

(No one would arguing that tomatoes are ridiculously good for you. They're one of the 40 Foods with Superpowers.)

That's all well and good. But do they offer any immediate benefit to a long-distance (or even short distance) runner? "Certainly their high anti-oxidant level may provide protections to muscles undergoing heavy exercise, such as during a marathon," Applegate suggests. "Tomatoes also provide some fluids, but it looks like a challenge using the robot to get the whole tomato—juice and all—in your mouth, especially when used at a decent running pace."

Even if you managed to choke all those tomatoes down, your insides aren't going to be too happy about it. "The acidity and digestive characteristics (of tomatoes) result in poor absorption by the body, and would be more likely to cause GI distress than anything else," says exercise physiologist Krista Austin, Ph.D. "Instead, runners should aim for a carbohydrate source that's more easily digested, such as found in many sports drinks."

The true test of the Tomatan came this past weekend, at the 2015 Tokyo Marathon. Shigenori Suzuki, 38, an employee of Kagome, became the first man to ever run a full marathon while being fed tomatoes by a robot (that we're aware of, anyway). And how did he do? Well, he did cross the finish line—which is impressive for anybody, but especially for somebody carrying a robot on his shoulders—and to the best of our knowledge he didn't vomit tomatoes at any point during the race.

His finishing time, however, was just 6:16:48. (The average marathon finishing time for U.S. men is 4:26.) And he came in 26,488th place... out of 26,836 participants. So, not dead last, but pretty close.

There are two ways you could interpret this. You could consider it irrefutable proof that runners shouldn't gorge on vegetables while in mid-run. Or, you could take a "glass-half-full" approach, and focus on the fact that Suzuki out-ran 348 people whoweren't being force-fed tomatoes by robots. That's got to count as some sort of victory, right?

(Besides tomatoes fed to you by a robot, What Should You Actually Eat Before a Run?)