Pendlebury, 38, turned back the clock with a magnificent 43-disposal best-on-ground performance against Essendon on Anzac Day, but is set to be rested against Hawthorn on Thursday night given the five-day break.
"Pendles, funnily enough, had a conversation with him yesterday, and he was pretty keen to miss this game. So he'll be managed," McRae said on Tuesday, indicating the rest was planned "to some degree".
Missing the Hawthorn game means Pendlebury (431 games) would equal Brent Harvey's 432-game record against Geelong, then break it against the Swans in Sydney.
If Pendlebury misses either game, he would be on track to break the record against West Coast at the MCG instead.
Collingwood clearly would want to maximise the fans that could celebrate Pendlebury's milestone by having him break the record in a home game.
But McRae is determined to stick to the football side of things, of which the veteran remains a crucial piece of the puzzle.
"Well, I had some conversations with the executive team about this early days, and truthfully, I said, 'can you just keep that on the other side of the building? Because we're here to perform and we just get that right," McRae said.
"And then, obviously, there has to be plans for the future - there has to be because there's all sorts of things going on behind the scenes to celebrate Pendles, because we don't want to miss that.
"Yeah, so let the people do their job and we'll just live in our space and get our job done."
Given how well Pendlebury played against Essendon, the Magpies clearly don't want to be without him too much in a stretch of games against contenders Hawthorn, Geelong and Sydney - and a potential finals campaign beyond that.
"He's quite unique, because there's obviously this whole big thing that's never been done before, so we're living in that space," McRae said.
"But then there's like, we're trying to qualify. And then when we qualify - good, positive language for our fans - when we qualify, we want our best players available.
"So do you think he can play every week to get to the time of the year when we think we need him most? Well, we're going to manage that and we're going to work through that week to week."
Skipper Darcy Moore will return against the Hawks while Ned Long looms as the man to replace Pendlebury.
Bobby Hill returned via the VFL last Friday, playing 40 per cent game time and McRae flagged that would increase to 70 to 80 per cent this week.
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