Running

There are plenty of hills where I live, however what I am looking for is the ability to run a half marathon distance at a steady 8-9% incline.

Not often, but probably once a month or thereabouts to check how fast I can do it.

Sadly none of the steeper hills around here are 21.1km long.

This is for your Norwegian uphill race thing, I presume?

I haven't had a reply on FB yet from the guy. Should you be doing a fitness test at race pace and full distance? I would suspect that very few runners do that regularly and for good reason... Perhaps only do 80% distance?