How to run long running synchronous functionality in a node, asyncio.to_thread?

[GaryFail]

I want to use with_structured_output but I hit an issue / bug if I call ainvoke on the LLM. I've asked a question about this specific issue but got no replies in this discussion.

So my next question is, is there a way I can spawn this off as a task so it doesn't block the event loop? I've read that it's best not to use asyncio.run in nodes in this discussion.

What would be the best thing to do given I want to use with_structured_output but can't call ainvoke on the LLM with it?

For reference, the code below throws an error when using ainvoke, if I use invoke it works but blocks the thread loop.

class Joke:
    question: str
    answer: str

class DebugState:
    joke: Joke

prompt_template = PromptTemplate(
    template="Tell me a joke about a {subject}",
    input_variables=[
        "subject",
    ],
    template_format="f-string",
)

# If I remove with_structured_output, it will stream back fine
runnable = prompt_template | llm.with_structured_output(Joke)

async def joke_creator(state: DebugState):

    subject = "Python"

    response = await runnable.ainvoke({"subject": subject})

    return {"joke": response}

Am I safe to use asyncio.to_thread inside a node?