Q: iPod Shuffle and podcasts

I just recently bought an iPod shuffle for working out / running. I like listening to podcasts, but discovered it's tricky getting podcasts onto the iPod shuffle where they are listenable. Anyone else encountered this issue?

I did find a work-around - by creating playlist(s) and dragging podcast episodes into those playlists in iTunes first, THEN drag them onto my iPod shuffle - this seems to work - but is sort of an irritating (very non-intuitive) extra step - which surprised me.

In my experience with it, if you just drag podcasts in iTunes onto your iPod shuffle, they'll show up as "Podcasts" and take up space in iTunes when you click on your device to see what's on it - but when you eject and want to listen to them - they aren't playable / accessible. So strange. So, as far as I can tell, for right now - you have to create podcast playlists and then drag those onto your iPod shuffle, then eject. 

If anyone has any tips / things to try, that would be great.