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i don't think the physics of running on a treadmill on an incline are a good proxy for running up a real hill though.
Indeed. It's certainly harder (just try whacking the treadmill incline up and maintaining normal speed), but you can adapt your running style to make it less hard work (but still harder than running on a flat treadmill).
The extra work of hill climbing is, unsurprisingly, raising your centre of gravity up with each stride (more than the usual running motion achieves). Running up a real hill there's no way to avoid this, you either climb or end up crawling along the road.
On an inclined treadmill you may change your gait to try and keep your CoG level (or limit it to the same small rise/fall movement as when running on a flat treadmill or road) by just landing your foot slightly higher, pressing down slightly less during the first part of the stride (to prevent you raising your CoG as much) and slightly more in the second half of the stride (to prevent your CoG falling as much). Fall into this trap and practice this for hours and you'll just bollox up your running stride.
Again, it's still harder than running on the flat, but depending how you adapt you could make a treadmill inclined at 10% not realisticly represent running up a 10% hill.
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Greenbank
@Sainsburys_Ed
i don't think the physics of running on a treadmill on an incline are a good proxy for running up a real hill though.
he'd be better off running long hill repeats, and i believe he lives on a steep longish hill together with completing some proper core and following a long distance duathlon training plan...
the closest thing i know of int he UK to that race is the ballbuster duathlon, which is basically laps of box hill, but it looks like they are running it this spring...