The code we write under within a single Thread (as in STA) feels like it is made of independant pieces each having their own life, but this is actually a fallacy : everything is mediated under a common event loop, which "linearizes" the various calls.
So everything we do, unless explicitely spoecified otherwise, is essentially single threaded and you can not wait for yourself without creating a deadlock.
When you specify Async.Start
it does start a new, independant computation which runs on its own, a "thread".
Whereas When you call runsynchronously, it awaits on the same 'thread'.
Now if the event you are waiting, which feels like an independant thing, is actually 'linearized' by the same event loop, you are actually waiting for yourself, hence the deadlock.
Something useful if you want to wait "asynchronously", (aka wait for an event, but not actually block and leave the opportunity for any other task to perform work) you can use the following code within your async block :
async {
....
let! token = myAsyncTask |> Async.StartChild
let! result = token
....
}