You can record the metronome to an audio track (output the metronome buss to an aux track), but honestly, midi is faster. Even one bar, you can right click and enable Groove clip looping... the corners will lop off the clip. Then zoom out and drag the right edge of the clip as far as you need.
If you use midi to a VST religiously, you can also right click to "Save as track template" so in the future only the midi notes are needed (and you can save a 4-bar groove clip to the media browser too).