diff --git a/miles/rollout/session/sessions.py b/miles/rollout/session/sessions.py
index 0c285bf8bb..f3de329816 100644
--- a/miles/rollout/session/sessions.py
+++ b/miles/rollout/session/sessions.py
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+import asyncio
 import json
 import logging
 import time
@@ -155,7 +156,8 @@ async def chat_completions(request: Request, session_id: str):
                 request_body["no_stop_trim"] = False
 
                 request_messages = request_body.get("messages", [])
-                pretokenized = session.prepare_pretokenized(
+                pretokenized = await asyncio.to_thread(
+                    session.prepare_pretokenized,
                     request_messages,
                     tools=request_body.get("tools"),
                     tito_tokenizer=registry.tito_tokenizer,
@@ -246,7 +248,8 @@ async def chat_completions(request: Request, session_id: str):
                     )
                     return backend.build_proxy_response(result)
 
-                session.update_pretokenized_state(
+                await asyncio.to_thread(
+                    session.update_pretokenized_state,
                     request_messages,
                     assistant_message,
                     prompt_token_ids=prompt_token_ids,
diff --git a/tests/fast/router/test_sessions.py b/tests/fast/router/test_sessions.py
index 8dd58189e1..66efa14649 100644
--- a/tests/fast/router/test_sessions.py
+++ b/tests/fast/router/test_sessions.py
@@ -1,13 +1,16 @@
 """Integration tests for session HTTP routes (create / get / delete / proxy)."""
 
 import re
+import time
 import uuid
+from concurrent.futures import ThreadPoolExecutor
 from types import SimpleNamespace
 from unittest.mock import patch
 
 import pytest
 import requests
 
+from miles.rollout.session.linear_trajectory import LinearTrajectory
 from miles.rollout.session.session_server import SessionServer
 from miles.utils.http_utils import find_available_port
 from miles.utils.test_utils.mock_sglang_server import MockSGLangServer, ProcessResult, with_mock_server
@@ -135,3 +138,48 @@ def test_proxy_chat_appends_record(self, router_env):
         record = records[0]
         assert record["path"] == "/v1/chat/completions"
         assert record["status_code"] == 200
+
+
+class TestTokenizationOffload:
+    """TITO tokenization is CPU work. It must run off the event loop so one slow
+    tokenization cannot stall every other request on the single uvicorn worker."""
+
+    def test_slow_tokenization_does_not_block_event_loop(self, router_env):
+        session_id = requests.post(f"{router_env.url}/sessions", timeout=5.0).json()["session_id"]
+
+        sleep_seconds = 1.0
+
+        def slow_prepare(self, *args, **kwargs):
+            time.sleep(sleep_seconds)
+            return None
+
+        payload = {
+            "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "hello"}],
+            "return_logprob": True,
+        }
+
+        with patch.object(LinearTrajectory, "prepare_pretokenized", slow_prepare):
+            with ThreadPoolExecutor(max_workers=1) as executor:
+                chat_future = executor.submit(
+                    requests.post,
+                    f"{router_env.url}/sessions/{session_id}/v1/chat/completions",
+                    json=payload,
+                    timeout=10.0,
+                )
+                # Let the chat request reach the (now slow) tokenization step.
+                time.sleep(0.2)
+
+                start = time.monotonic()
+                health = requests.get(f"{router_env.url}/health", timeout=5.0)
+                elapsed = time.monotonic() - start
+
+                chat_future.result()
+
+        assert health.status_code == 200
+        # If tokenization ran on the event loop, /health would be blocked for
+        # ~sleep_seconds. Offloaded to a thread, the loop stays responsive and
+        # /health returns almost immediately.
+        assert elapsed < sleep_seconds / 2, (
+            f"/health blocked for {elapsed:.2f}s during tokenization; "
+            "event loop was not free (tokenization not offloaded)"
+        )